On a lot of what you have posted on this thread. ;^)> What else ?
I wouldn't disagree with your conservative principles.
I think calling my son a thief is a bit outlandish, I think saying things to the tune of “Apple has always been open user” is rubbish, and when I dispute I’m told that I am misleading or don’t know the facts.
I never called your son a thief. I believe that ReignOfError made the comment that a kid could not build a PC computer equivalent to a $5000 MacPro with it's two six core Xeon processors (which retail for around $1200 a piece) and the high end graphics card, unless he stole them, for your quoted $800. I agree... he couldn't. At the time that was written, Esox, the kid was anonymous and you had not identified him as your son. I doubt Reign would have couched her criticism in quite those terms had she known you were referring to your kid.
or that Apple doesn’t control music content. Maybe now they don’t, but it was stated that they DID. Revisionist history is a key of Apple fans. The past never exists with them, unless it is to their benefit.
Apple lead the effort to get rid of DRM on music. Steve Jobs and iTunes broke the stranglehold the music publishers had on music distribution after they killed Napster. He found a viable way the publishers could live with digital downloads. The price they insisted on was DRM. Jobs wrote an open letter to the music industry about removing DRM and negotiated the first non-DRM music from a major label... this is established history ... Which finally opened the floodgates to all of the music publishers selling music without DRM. Apple is now trying to do the same thing to Hollywood to get the prices of movies down. . . And to remove DRM from them.
As a past musician I do believe that music should be paid for. Copyrights should be supported. I buy my music. I don't pirate. 99 cents is a fair price for a song I like and want to own and listen to and the artists should receive the reward for having done it. I get angry when my work is stolen by people who claim to like what I did but aren't willing to pay me what it's worth.
Really? Where were you? What is your stake in Apple? Would you mind disclosing this great insight that you have?
You know, esox, some of us older guys WORKED in computer tech ... I own a business that supported Windows and Mac computers since the mid 1980s. I still own it but its more of a side line now for a few die hard clients who don't want me to hand them off to younger guys. I work intimately with both systems earning my living from them. I LIVED much of this history.
My nephew (who is only a few years younger than I) was a member of the Home Brew Computer club with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and decided against accepting their offer of one of the first ten jobs at Apple because he didn't think it was going to go anywhere—but did wind up as the manager of the first Apple affiliate store in Berkeley selling Apple IIs—and regrets his lack of foresight to this day. He is still a friend of the Woz ... and sees Jobs occasionally.
Many of the people who were instrumental in these events, I'd call up to ask technical questions and would shoot the breeze with them and we'd talk about what was happening... So, yes. I DO know what happened. I read the primary documents. Not the second hand speculation...and certainly not the spin... And, knowing the background, I can interpret what really is going on.
Oh, and it's not me verses "every report that's out there" because I can link to reports that back up every word I've posted. . . From mainstream technical pundits and reviewers. I can prove what I post.
So, you have skin in the game. It is nice to divulge that you have a past history with Apple before trying to even sound objective. Of that you are not.
My involvement with Apple began later than yours, I’m sure. I got my first degree in 84. My first 2 years in college were spent on an Apple II. The third year, on an apple IIc, hooked to a corvus. By the 4th year, everything we had purchased was garbage, thousands of dollars of engineering software, garbage, because the school then went into Mac. The two systems could not run the same software.
Upon entering graduate school, and having already done all of my required computer language classes (there were only 2, fortran 1 and 2 and Cobol Pascal, well, plus flowcharting), I was told everything you learned in school, throw away, because the world does not operate on Apples. I learned that, they did not. All of the emerging robot technology was on PC. PC and Apple was not compatible at that time. Well, unless you were doing spaghetti code or basic DOS.
I drifted from having to do anything with programming. It wasn’t my interest, nor my field. I was an engineering student. PC use was what was needed. CAD. All relevant engineering programs on building design, and environmental controls were on PC. I didn’t dissect the languages, didn’t need to. To this day, many of the older buildings that we manage are still in this format. To maintain and troubleshoot them, it is done on late 80’s programs believe it or not. Very basic stuff. Newer controls are being implemented all the time, especially, well, in newer buildings. These programs are also PC based. I can monitor them from home, from our shop, and I have to trouble shoot them, from many miles away, via our PCs. The software might run on a Mac, I dunno, I have no reason to want to try it. Up to this point, my experience with anything Apple has been a major disappointment. In addition, our network has several PC’s, and the addition of the iMac has been problematic. All of our field reps use PC laptops. To even consider changing to apple would cost us at least in the 6 digit category. And why? So we can get punked by Apple when they change their OS or some other such nonsense?
I am an end user of programs, not a programmer, but even the guts of the systems we use, from the controls on a ventilation system, to the fire suppression system of a building is PC based, with PC boards, which are controlled by PC programs.
All of my diagnostic stuff is PC, and it must be registered to each individual computer. I always watch for the OS needed to run such software, because I have to have the operating system at hand (yes we also have several field laptops with just windows 98 or ME on them, because they run like crap even in proprietary mode in Windows), I don’t see anything in my field for Apple, and i’m not going to chance the liability of running a program in the background on a non-native system. The implications and risk of explosion from a badly controlled boiler, or the risk of sick-building syndrome from perhaps over humidity are too great to chance with a flaky system, or a system non-native to the design engineers.
It just doesn’t fit, and I’ve explained this early on in this debate. Maybe it could be made to fit, but I have a real job, and there sometimes aren’t enough hours in the day to get done what needs to get done. As an engineer, I was taught the golden rule of good engineering. Don’t fix it if aint broke. Too many engineers over think problems, I see this daily in my line of work.
Another rule of engineering, make sure your product is complete, has been tested, re-tested, evaluated by peers, and evaluated by end-users before releasing it. Apple seems to do none of the above in any cohesive fashion.
For a long time, I worked in the printing field as an engineer, I worked on the design of printing presses, and the integration of pre-press components with actual floor equipment.
At that time, Apple had the hands up in graphic design. I mean, no comparison. My brother stayed in the printing field (a very hurting industry right now), and when I can stand to talk with him (I have 2 very liberal brothers), we do talk shop, etc. They have moved completely away from the Apples over the last couple of years, because the computerized presses and the whole shop have to be ISO 9000 compliant. They had nothing but major problems integrating the pre-press Apples with the pressrooms. In addition, his subcontractors, the pre-press houses, moved from the Apple software, to Adobe for PC, and Photoshop for PC, so most of the files he was getting in were PC anyway (as opposed to the old days).
So, I have your take, you have a stake in Apple. You have my take, I don’t. I have to use what works. For my line of work, Apple might work, but I can’t risk that.
You mentioned earlier that office exists for PC or Mac. yes, it does, but if I take an excel worksheet for a bid or for calculations, that was written on my PC, and I transfer that to my wifes iMac, formulas change on occasion, columns change on occasion etc. As an engineer, that is a big NO NO. Every decimal can have severe consequences. There is no law of engineering more prominent, than the law of unintended consequences. I use that law more than Ohm’s law, as I feel it can cause the most damage. Is that Apples fault? Maybe not, maybe it’s microsofts fault, but it’s a chance I can’t take. We have found it a couple of times, where a formula had to be reinserted. That is not acceptable.
And again, on to my son. He games. He wouldn’t be caught dead with an Apple product. He read some of the previous posts before bed last night, and gave me a good one liner that is common with his friends. It’s an old one, it used to be about mopeds (kids don’t know what mopeds are), but has been changed.
What do fat girls and apples have in common? they are both fun till your friends see you with one.
No offense to fat girls.
The other one he offered was: What’s gayer than Justin Beiber? Justin Beiber on an Apple.
All joking aside, apple is just not for me. That is how this thread started, and you took offense to that. I also offered that Baskin Robins has 31 flavors for a reason. To each his own. That still didn’t satsify you, you wanted to pursue the subject, you wanted to prove that Apple is the greatest thing since sliced meatloaf. I explained why it wasn’t, you wanted to argue.
I checked your posting history, and realized this would not get anywhere, so I made a rhetorical, passive aggressive attempt at humor to shut you up. Instead of seeing the humor, you went off the deep end. Does yellow make you sad?
I still don’t like apple, it doesn’t fit my needs, either technically or socially. When I retire, and play minesweeper and listen to Barry Manilow, I may buy an Apple, but probably not, because it will probably explode in my hands when I pass by my church. I’m sure they will have an app out by then to cause shrapnel damage to Christian institutions.