Damn! I might have to buy an Ipad
- Thread starter maureen
- Start date
Jeff Grossman
Jeff Grossman
scottreiner
scott reiner
Ian Fitzsimmons
Ian Fitzsimmons
Not sure it's worth it; he's obviously not following the WD thread on blind tastings.
Jeff Grossman
Jeff Grossman
Have you used them? Is the service good?
Ian Fitzsimmons
Ian Fitzsimmons
Ditto.
scottreiner
scott reiner
very strange. i simply cut and paste the html code from the wd faq for imbedding links...
Ian Fitzsimmons
Ian Fitzsimmons
I think not; but if you figure out how to do it, please share.
Apple is wearing me out with their proprietary limiting bullshit. They are the new Microsoft.
Apple is wearing me out with their proprietary limiting bullshit. They are the new Microsoft.
Ian, clearly you aren't in the computer biz, as your statement indicates a lack of familiarity with Apple's history. They have long been one of the most control oriented, closed, proprietary platforms around. You can thank them for eBook price fixing as well.
Microsoft is practically open source in comparison, with a wide range of hardware vendors, open SDKs for development, etc.
Microsoft is practically open source in comparison, with a wide range of hardware vendors, open SDKs for development, etc.
What you say was far more true a decade ago. When Jobs brought the Darwin platform to Apple for OS X, they released it as open source. Likewise, they made a strategic decision to create an open development platform for IOS, arguably the key to the iPhone's popularity via app proliferation. Linux and Droid still are another step up in openness but M$ still lags behind much like Big Blue did a generation earlier.
Mark Lipton
I own an iPhone, iPad, and a MB Pro and am in no way anti Apple. But i'm not following you as to how Apple and iOS is a more open platform than MSFT. From an implementation perspective it certainly is not as it runs on no hardware platform other than Apple. From an app dev perspective it is essentially the same isn't it? As opposed to open source platforms where you can extend the OS, on either you are restricted to using the published apis and interfaces right? Of course for iOS you have to pay $99 a year, submit your applications for approval, and can only do development on an Apple computer. But i'm not getting how MSFT is lagging. Can you explain?
Jim,
It's Important to separate mobile device development from desktop OS development. I don't know enough about the former to comment cogently, but in the realm of software development for desktop OSs, Windows has long been a problem. M$ has consistently ignored industry standards, introducing its own instead. Think C#, .net and lack of true POSIX compliance of Windows. This is exactly what Big Blue used to back in the day when they actually made stuff (does anyone remember EBCDIC?). They've been happy to release APIs, but always on their terms. For a long time Apple was no better, but that changed with OS X for the reasons I outlined above.
Mark Lipton
It's Important to separate mobile device development from desktop OS development. I don't know enough about the former to comment cogently, but in the realm of software development for desktop OSs, Windows has long been a problem. M$ has consistently ignored industry standards, introducing its own instead. Think C#, .net and lack of true POSIX compliance of Windows. This is exactly what Big Blue used to back in the day when they actually made stuff (does anyone remember EBCDIC?). They've been happy to release APIs, but always on their terms. For a long time Apple was no better, but that changed with OS X for the reasons I outlined above.
Mark Lipton
Peter Creasey
Peter Creasey
Mark, Wow! A term from the past for this former IBM programmer/analyst on the NASA Apollo and Space Shuttle programs.
What fun to reminisce about those days (especially the splash-down parties after a successful mission)!
. . . . . . Pete
Jeff Grossman
Jeff Grossman
An unfair characterization; go read the Wikipedia entry. In short, IBM was a major advocate of ASCII but the standard was rejected just at the time that they were releasing the System370. They fell back on EBCDIC and when System370 became a big seller, they were stuck with it.
Jeff Grossman
Jeff Grossman
On the site they say, "Major components of Mac OS X, including the UNIX core, are made available under Apple’s Open Source license...."
That is not what the Open Source movement would call Open Source. It should all be there, not just whatever someone deems to be 'major'.
Yes and no. Yes, they created a dev platform for everyone. No, you can't write in anything other than their tool and their language.
That is still hostile, just one generation removed.
Microsoft is a software vendor. Their strength is their distribution channels. Beyond that, they're kinda clueless (if very active).
Apple is a hardware vendor. They are slowly being persuaded that other people can write software for their devices but they really still act as if only their own work (and praxis) matters.
Keith Levenberg
Keith Levenberg
Wow, Peter! Had no idea. Chapeau, sir.
Jeff,
My understanding is that they released the Darwin kernel. What they didn't release was the user interface, but the Darwin kernel is Open Source, a big departure from past practices.
Fair enough characterization. As I said, mobile platforms aren't my bailiwick.
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Apple is more of a hardware/software hybrid. After all, they marketed iTunes for platforms other than their own and they have done a lot of OS development in house. I've been writing software for Apple devices for a decade now, using a C++ compiler supplied to me as part of the Developers package. I haven't felt any hostility or resistance, but then again I'm not a commercial entity.
Mark Lipton
No, Jeff. I think that your (or maybe Wikipedia's) history is off. IBM had pushed for the adoption of ASCII by the ASA (forerunner to ANSI) working committee, but some of that might have been the result of Bob Berner's influence (he worked for IBM until 1961). Berner knew the importance of a standard firsthand since IBM had no less than 9 different character encoding in their various machines. ASA did adopt ASCII as a standard in 1963, and IBM was slated to introduce OS/360 as the first OS to use ASCII, but then discovered that their card punches and card readers couldn't be redesigned quick enough to use a 7-bit encoding. They then toyed with the idea of a dual ASCII/EBCDIC system before abandoning that as unworkable and sticking with EBCDIC. OK, so they had great intentions, but then they stuck with EBCDIC for the next 18 years after the adoption of the ASCII standard? That sounds suspiciously like the US history with the metric system.
Mark Lipton
(erstwhile IBM 360 sysop)