What a circle jerk. Pay no attention to the facts or arguments, just frantically stroke yourself while thinking that you're offending me.
I take great pleasure in only being criticized by people who can't effectively mount a counter argument, and must rely on calling me names and suggesting that my "opinion is biased."
Please, keep going, you're only stoking my ego.
Have fun with that Zune!
Why would anyone pay money for songs when you can hum your own tunes?
Why pay for the bus when you can walk?
Why buy fast food when you can grow your own corn and hammer it into tortillas?
Why spend money when you can? Because you can!
Actually, the iTunes Extra content (both for audio albums and for movies) is just a self contained web site of HTML/CSS/JS and standard files wrapped up in a bundle (a directory acting as a file) so its easy to use and easy to author.
What it is competing against is stuff like DVD-A, WMA-CDs, BluRay authoring, etc. Anyway, it's free bonus content for fans, not something that could concern those who don't believe in intellectual property.
Apple rivals DVD with new iTunes Extras for movies and albums
You system is full of malware. Windows comes with malware from the factory: WGA spyware, Alexa adware. And IE shoves down as much junk as it can. You may not think you have viruses, but at best you're losing 10% of your CPU running antivirus diapers, and at worse you're wrong.
By "They managed to turn the Xbox franchise around with the Xbox 360" do you mean "turn around hardware suffering from a >50% failure rate" or "turn around and lost billions more money over several years selling hardware at a loss"?
Microsoft's 360 couldn't compete against a polished GameCube, and now the PS3 is cheaper and better equipped, while the 360 is long in the tooth and will not be updated to a new generation for years, just as the PS3 is beginning to take off.
Still, the Zune makes Xbox look like a stellar success. It's clearly headed nowhere.
Apple delivers interesting products that push the state of the art into the consumer mainstream. Microsoft does not.
Apple pays for open source development, pursues open protocols and specifications. Microsoft does not.
Apple welcomes competition and contributes toward meritocracy rather than status quo junk. Microsoft does not.
Apple obeys the rule of law, avoiding criminal charges on cheating customers and markets globally. Microsoft does not.
Apple has taste and class. Microsoft does not.
Why will developers flock to a platform with zero installed base?
It's not even compatible with Windows Mobile, and nobody even cares about WiMo software. So with no apps, why will anyone buy a ZHD? For the angular 80s look? Because they missed out on the previous two generations of Zune, which also promised XNA games before being discontinued?
Microsoft's office/server/desktop monopolies are doing nothing to give it any credibility in the mobile space.
yes that would save you $9.99! every! year!
1) What other commercial applications exist for Linux? Hmm, and why not?
2) Say Apple decided it wanted to sell iTunes content to people who mostly don't believe in intellectual property to start with. Which window manager would it target?
3) What Linux users would install a binary version of iTunes? And why wouldn't they just run the Win32 version in WINE?
4) Why does Apple keep saying it purposely runs iTunes at break even?
5) How would iTunes for Linux help sell iPods or Macs, given that Linux users who want an iPod already buy them?
The iPhone has a free and open platform option: it's called HTML5. Apps designed for it will also run on your N900 (presumably), your Android stuff, and so on.
Apple destroyed Windows Mobile and killed off audio DRM. It has pushed forward HTML5, LLVM, WebKit, and CUPS. At some point, the open source community has to stop demanding that Apple fail so that it can flourish. FOSS is flourishing because of Apple, not in spite of it.
What other consumer company supports FOSS more than Apple? Most are just FOSS parasites trying to make a buck on the community's efforts. Google throws out bones online, but Android is just a minimal defensive effort against WiMo, not a strong push to bring open software to the mainstream. Apple isn't a primary advocate of FOSS, but it does more to enable competition and directly contributes to open software on many levels.
Steve Jobs pushed BSD Unix before Linux was even conceived, and worked to make OpenStep an open specification for all operating systems; the world rejected open and chose enslavement to Microsoft. So now Apple is just making money on its technology instead. Fuck ideology. The more you give, the more people hate you. The more you demand, they more they grovel at your feet.
In this case, the most straightforward, simple explanation is that Microsoft floated its portfolio of Linux patents on the market as bait for patent trolls, and instead they were bought by a patent defense outfit.
What's your explanation, that Microsoft wanted to do good, but didn't want any credit for it? Because that's ridiculous on many levels. That Microsoft suddenly needed an insignificant few million for patents that it had suddenly reversed its clearly stated strategy on? Equally absurd.
There's nothing "conspiracy theory" or paranoid about Microsoft trying, and failing, to use its Linux-related patents to attack Linux, as it clearly signaled the intent to do with overt, not implied, threats. Microsoft is regularly badgered by patent trolls, so its not like the company doesn't understand how the game works.
And Microsoft's last attack on Linux via SCO, which involved overt "investment" in SCO after funding it with Caldera settlement money, slipped most people's radar and created near zero problems for the company while holding up Linux in a FUD-bath of terror. Why not try to do the same thing again? It's not like Linux suddenly isn't a thorn in Microsoft's server hide.
Daniel Lyons: Fake Steve Jobs and the SCO Shill Who Hated Linux
Microsoft's Unwinnable War on Linux and Open Source
If you step back from your ideology for a moment, you can look at examples of patents being used defensively to de-escalate wars.
For example, Microsoft has plenty of patents on things Apple uses. If Apple gave all of its IP to the public domain, then Microsoft could have sued Apple into oblivion, and your peace and love strategy would have rendered the company an ineffectual footnote of history.
Instead, Apple presents its own patent portfolio to Microsoft and the two have regularly worked out patent sharing deals. Apple also has reasons to side with Linux and BSD groups, and reason to step in and defend attacks from Microsoft and others who lack this. Apple owns CUPS, Linux' printing system. It relies upon Samba for its Windows sharing compatibility. If it weren't for Apple's involvements, Microsoft would have nothing holding it back from suing these groups out of existence, and mainstream users wouldn't ever even hear about it.
If you look at how things are and how things really work as opposed to fabricating a world view described in over the top language, you'll clue into why "progress and freedom" isn't being delivered by naive ideologues, but is won through competition and struggle.
I agree that there are plenty of problems with the patent system, and Microsoft and Apple both support the idea of reform. But change is scary and nobody wants to give up what they have for something less, whether they are patent holders, potential patent holders, or even consumers with uncertain fair use rights. As in most areas, we need more constructive talk and less overstated dogma. But to suggest that certain companies "ought" to just lay down their weapons and let the others crush them before any change can happen is simply uninformed idealism that only seems like a good idea to people who bear no risk in the outcome.
Symbiotic: What Apple Does for Open Source
Rethink your position. The point of defensive patents is to leverage what you have to make up for what you don't have.
If you sue me over patent A, I can countersue you over patent B, and force you to settle with me amicably in a sharing arrangement.
If I give away by patent B so that unicorns dance among sunshine and rainbow farts, then I end up fucked when you sue me over patent A. I am also powerless to help anyone else in the open source community being attacked over patent A, because I gave away my leverage to the public domain.
I'm all for beating swords into plowshares, but if you're likely to show up and stab me with your sword, I better keep my sword around, too.
I posted a link to that story because it fills in additional details about the original approval of C64.
You are certainly right that Apple doesn't want iPhone apps or components being sold outside the App Store. The obvious reason is so that it can take a 30% cut of all software being sold for its platform (just like game console makers do, although their cut is much larger). But the linked article also points out other reasons why Apple is working to maintain control over the iPhone's apps.
For starters, it means that malware for the iPhone will be really hard to create and viruses will be even harder. If an app goes berserk, Apple can revoke its certificate to stop it dead. It also prevents shovelware from making the iPhone software market look like a dump. Go browse a WiMo or Symbian store. Most of their apps look as bad as DOS-era software. Apple is pretty strict about not just looks, but style, preventing nagware and begging. Apple even canned an entire developer of shovelware, banning something like 800 garbage apps from the App Store because many of them were appropriating unauthorized data, just like SEO trashmen who steal content and put up fake blogs paid for by Google.
Google thinks there is no trash beneath their ads, which is why it naively opens its arms to developers in Android. I claimed some time ago this would be a problem for Android (once it gets going), and I still think I'll be right. Nobody is agreeing yet.
Google's Android Market Guarantees Problems for Users
Apple also doesn't want to allow Flash/Silverlight/Java to take over its mobile platform and compete against Cocoa on the iPhone. This is more controversial, but is related to the "we don't want your insecure junkware tainting our platform" motivation. Most of the vulnerabilities reported for Mac OS X are actually flaws in Flash and Java. Apple doesn't want to maintain the same effort on the iPhone, and currently it doesn't have to.
In June 2007, I was the first to say Apple clearly didn't want Flash or Java on the iPhone, at a time when everyone was assuring us that Adobe would deliver Flash for the iPhone by the end of 2007. They were wrong. Apple clearly does not want Flash, and was only telling pundits just enough to keep them pacified.
Gone in a Flash: More on Apple's iPhone Web Plans
In this case, Apple isn't worried about C64 creating a BASIC platform that rivals Cocoa. Instead, it's mostly worried that an exposed BASIC interpreter could be used to distribute unauthorized "ROMs," potentially exposing Apple to copyright claims, or to open some can of worms about viruses or "malware" that might be used to suggest the iPhone had security problems. You know Wired would jizz itself over C64 BASIC malware running on the iPhone, using headlines that again equated it to Windows 95, as it did at the iPhone's launch.
Kim Zetter and the iPhone Root Security Myth
When you judge Apple, don't forget that the company swims in a tank of piranhas.
Seriously, "duplicating core functionality" is not the only restriction in the iPhone SDK.
This is quite obviously related to the restriction on exposing an executable shell and other forms of executing arbitrary code, such as external plugins or frameworks. iPhone apps can't run random code downloaded from the Internet or run other files on the system. They are all sandboxed to prevent PC-style chaos.
"An Application may not itself install or launch other executable code by any means, including without limitation through the use of a plug-in architecture, calling other frameworks, other APIs or otherwise. No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple's Published APIs and built-in interpreter(s)."
That same restriction is what kills any prospects for implementing Flash, Silverlight or Java on the iPhone.
"Show business is just like high school, except you get paid." - Martin Mull
