Fallout From Apple's Exclusion of Flash-to-iPhone Export Continues

[qtx43]

Apple is a member of MPEG LA that announced that they will ask for royalities in 2016.

So they are now giving it away for free and wait until it gets a defacto standard and THEN get the big $$$. That's even worse as it's the same tactic that Unisys used with the LZW patents.

And don't tell me I'm wrong. Or why doesn't Apple support HTML5/OGG Theora in their products? Shouldn't the web developers be free to choose which codec they want to use in HTML5? Why doesn't Apple support this?

I think you're wrong, but would like it if you could provide a reference where they "announced they will ask for royalties in 2016". The only announcement I saw was that they announce their plans in 5 year blocks and that there will be no patent royalties for 2011-2015. Maybe cynicism about what happens in 2016 is the smart prediction, but making things up doesn't make you credible.

And Apple might be supporting H.264 because it's, you know, better.

 

[odedia]

For crying out loud

I really don't understand the issue here.

Regarding Flash - the web should be built on open standards, like HTML5. Flash is not an open standard, therefore it has no right to exist on this planet, and it should just die already. Like the real player before it, and a million other "plugins" that were supposed to make the web better but made it worse.

Regarding flash export for iPhone - this is a joke. Apple keeps updating their software and their OS. They don't tell Adobe about it, and they don't need to. In order to have better support for current and future updates, they need control of the compiler and development environment. Otherwise, we'll get into a problem where Apple should wait for Adobe to update its IDE to support iPhone development, and we're right back to the days of Mac OS 9 and Metroworks. I don't understand why Adobe thought that was possible.

What about new devices with new hardware and new processors? Apple's compilers are optimized per device, like the new Accelerate libraries for math functions. Adobe can't make something as optimized, and they sure as hell can't do it for products that haven't been released yet. Apple spent years building on top GCC to create the new LLVM / Clang compiler. Should they just throw all this away because Adobe wants a piece of the cake?

Adobe should just stick to what it knows best, improve Photoshop, Premiere, InDesign etc. and leave the iPhone alone, you were never a player in this market and you never will be. Just get over it!

 

[EagerDragon]

For years now

For the last 3 years I been avoiding almost all flash serving sites. The only exception is HULU. I expect that soon they will be doing HTML5 so I can finaly say ALL.

Flash is a resource hog, full of security vulnerabilities and crash prone.

Developing in flash is nice for flash developers, developing in Objective-C is the best choice for iPhone developers. There is no need to bring in external APIs when you develop forthe iPhone most anything you need is in there.

This whole 1000 plus post is about a bunch of developers that do not want to learn Objective-c?

No this is about a lot of people that just don't like how Apple does things.

TO the developers..... Learn Objective C or more to some other platform, over 100,000 other developeres have done it, what makes you special?

To those that are just wildly negative about Apple ways, there is no cure for lack of maturity other than wait and watch. No amount of reasoning or insults will ever change your mind, you are an Anti-Apple fan-boy.

HAve it ever occur to you that maybe, just maybe there may be a technical issue why Apple made that decision? Maybe you should wait to find out instead of making your own wild statements that are just based on your wild imagination.

If Apple is doing something wrong you can bet that Adobe will be taking them to court, and they will not be the first ones.

If developers don't like this they should move to another more librral environment and take their apps with them.

With the court case we will get to find out a lot more information and then people will be able to make decisions based on facts.

If only a few developers move over, then they don't matter, if more than 50 percent move over then they will be missed, but that is still not going to cause Apple pain. It is going to cause the developers greater pain because they would not be making bags of money via the App Store and have to make poxket change in a less popular but more libraral store.

 

[*LTD*]

I think you're wrong, but would like it if you could provide a reference where they "announced they will ask for royalties in 2016". The only announcement I saw was that they announce their plans in 5 year blocks and that there will be no patent royalties for 2011-2015. Maybe cynicism about what happens in 2016 is the smart prediction, but making things up doesn't make you credible.

And Apple might be supporting H.264 because it's, you know, better.

http://www.cultofmac.com/h-264-will-stay-royalty-free-for-free-internet-video-through-2016/28982

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20000040-264.html

http://elearning.uvic.ca/patriclougheed/303-h264-royalty-free-stsus-renewed

You didn't find anything about such an announcement from Apple because Apple didn't make one.

 

[WilliamLondon]

Well it lets you install a printer driver for example so that you can directly print

Fixed in next version. I agree, direct print is a problem, but wasn't for the iPhone really - I mean, that's a smartphone, not intended to do office work. In the iPad, yes, it's missing - direct print becomes a serious issue. Agreed, but fixed next OS version.

.. it reads your SD card or usb key without a hitch ..

The iPad reads an SD card.

I can install flash (which even in win7 starters does work ok for most stuff) ..

Don't care about proprietary formats, I want them eliminated from the web.

you can install firefox with ad-block .. and have multiple email clients / accounts (one for everybody in the household) ..

Multiple browsers - why in the world do we need multiple browsers? Why? They all are free, and all perform the same function, to view the web. I'm okay with Apple picking one and sticking with that one, if it doesn't do what you want (other than Flash) then it should be raised as a feature request. Other than that, it's silly, the browser is merely the framing of the web window you view. Do I care what that is? Not really, but I want it to work and be fast and secure.

i have a 250gb harddisk allowing me to carry me about 15 times more data and multimedia files around.

I have a 2TB drive that I carry around with me and plug into the wall - it's great. For those times I need more, I have an 8 TB drive I carry around with me. When I need all that, I carry them all in a little red wagon. How ridiculous. The form factor of the iPad (which we are talking about in a Flash bitching session) is small, and there are trade-offs. Oh my!

If storage is really a big issue, this is a mobile device with wifi and 3G in the next version - there is the cloud, or your other computing devices. Is there really a need to carry around 250GB of data all the time for a small device, which is complementary to your other computers? I mean, if you can't install (and don't) every browser, and every application your OEM version of the OS wants you to trial, and every driver for every eventual device which you may at one point in the future hook up to it, is there really a need for such storage?

... ah and at the end of the day I paid half as much.

That is at least why I bought a netbook.
T.

You bought on price, so what? What's the form factor? You've not really identified anything that you can do that the iPad doesn't, except for Flash, and that's being rectified.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

"might hurt them in the long run."

It's already been "the long run." Apple's not hurt. In fact, they're selling Macs in record numbers.

They don't even come CLOSE to their record high market share (closer to 20%) in the 1980s and early 1990s when you could find Mac software at many retailers. My point is not to compare their sales in the late '90s (when they almost went out of business) to NOW but compared to what they COULD be getting with more choices and somewhat lower prices. You can argue making the highest possible profit margin is best, but market share is what saves platforms when something changes (like when Windows95/98 almost killed the Mac period). Apple cannot count on good times to last forever. And thus YOUR ideas of "long term" is 100% FLAWED. Do you seriously think Mac users though in 1992 that Apple was soon going to almost go bankrupt in less than half a decade? No way. Your short-sightedness is obvious.

In a recession. Macs represent the cream of the computing crop, thanks to Apple focusing on what's most important: The User Experience. The $1000

I would say it's thanks to Vista being a TOTAL FLOP. Windows7 is much better and so you simply cannot count on OSX sales being where they are at the moment forever. There is much to be said about the popularity of the iPhone carrying over to Mac sales as well. But again, you cannot count on the iPhone being the darling of the industry forever. Those that do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Every company has flops sooner or later. Apple has had it's share in the past and there is no reason to think they will not again in the future. The question is whether they can survive it the next time it happens. Microsoft is in no danger of ever going out of business any time soon because of their massive market share. They can afford to have a "relative flop" like Vista once in awhile because of this share.

entry fee is a natural barrier. But that's the Premium market being what it is.

What exactly is "premium" about a Mac these days other than the price? The lack of viruses and spyware is my favorite feature over Windows. The interface is somewhat nicer overall. But you cannot say its video performance is better than Windows or its gaming support or the amount of available applications. Maybe some like the old "yuppee" sense of being "superior" (or at least "different") than the masses, but that's illusion and snobbyness, not an actual feature.

Meanwhile MS and the box-assemblers are busy selling junk to the low end of the market.

This is an ignorant statement from someone that is obviously clueless about reality when it comes to personal computers. Yes there is junk out there in the Windows world but there is also better quality and especially price to performance ratios than any Mac. You cannot base an all encompassing reality based on the lowest common denominator. Or should the last generation Mac-Mini with GMA Intel graphics and a slow hard drive with its CD-Rom standard in an era where DVD-RW drives were long since standard on all PCs and Blu-Ray one some newer ones be the standard Apple should have been judged by a couple of years ago? That thing was a laughing stock item at a price 2-3x its value. It's a little bit better now, but it's still an oddity when a small form tower could have high-performance power at the same price. Small footprints might be "cute" but they hinder performance. The iMac has the same problem. What space it saves is taken up by external expansion required just to back the thing up and limits the power of both its CPU and GPU in the process. You might "like" the look, but some people would prefer more power. The Mac Pro has power, but it's priced and set up at the workstation level, not a mid-range relatively high power PC, of which Apple offers NO solutions in this category and that is a massive turn-off to some that might actually prefer the Mac OS.

The days of the "desktop" are coming to a close, in any case. Retailers can

So now you're Nostradamus too??? Give me a break. Desktops might decrease in market share, but they're not going away ANY time soon because notebooks will always be less powerful and there's always a market for power users. You might not need more than an iPad, but some people have greater needs for power than others.

If you're going to troll, please don't post 998 words of it.

If you're going to accuse someone of trolling, then maybe you better learn to recognize one instead of trying to flame/label someone instead of using actual logic or discussion to make your case. Otherwise, you sound like nothing more than another fanboy. I own two Apple Macs, two Apple TVs, an iPod Touch and have OSX on a Dell Netbook (and only one dedicated PC) and I'm somehow a "troll" because I don't blindly worship Apple like you do? You are completely out of touch with reality.

 

[baryon]

I hate all of this.

As a professional that make my living using Apple and Adobe products, I would be crushed if Adobe pull the plug developing software for Apple.
Most the creative community would be in that same situation.

I hope both sides can find a common ground on this whole mess.

Exactly... What would you do if that ever happened? I would switch to Windows, since what's most important for me are Adobe products, but I would hate to leave the Mac platform because I love it, but I would have no choice.

 

[csimmons]

Firstly.

I never claimed that Flash would or would not die out. Don't put phantom words into my post. Thanks.

Secondly. Who smacked who down? Muah? Because according to my post and retort history, you and your gang has yet to fault my original statement.

"Adobe changed the face of the Internet. Has Apple done this"?

No.

Friend, the reality is that your argument has been smacked down numerous times, in a relatively short time span. The problem is that you're so convinced of your own faux intelligence and non-existent reasoning, you can't see it. That's what makes you IMHO highly amusing, as trolls go.

But since I'm a kind hearted soul, I'll play along by directly answering your "original question" (tongue planted firmly in cheek):

Yes, Apple has changed, and is still in the process of changing, the Internet. It's instrument is called the iPhoneOS.

The iPhone was the first device to make the internet as we know and love it truly mobile.

The iPhone is the device that forced all other mobile device makers to rethink how they present the internet to end users.

If it weren't for the iPhoneOS, Android, WebOS, Winblows Mobile 7-whatever-it-will-be-called would not exist.

If it weren't for the iPhoneOS and Safari, WebKit (developed by Apple) would not be the engine powering Google Chrome, upcoming IE9, Opera, and a host of other browsers either out now or coming out in the very near future.

If it weren't for Apple playing a leading role in the mobile browser space (over 60% of ALL mobile browser usage comes from iPhoneOS users), your precious Adobe wouldn't be sweating bullets as we speak regarding Flash. The iPad will only make it worse.

Since everyone (except you, apparently) acknowledges that the future of the internet is in mobile devices, and Apple dominates the mobile device space in terms of brand awareness, mind share and technology, it can be reasonably concluded that Apple has indeed changed the face of the internet, and this all WITHOUT ADOBE OR FLASH.

Daniel Eran Dilger wrote on his blog recently something that many Apple-haters consistently refuse to acknowledge in their arguments against Apple and it's so-called war with Adobe:

"Adobe likes to say that 96% of all computers in the US have Flash installed. What it doesn’t say is that more than 60% of all smartphone web traffic, and 96% of all “Mobile Internet Device” (that’s a euphemism for “iPod touch”) traffic doesn’t run Flash at all."

Those words aren't just the mere musings of an Apple fanboy; those are cold, hard facts.

Shall I go on?

 

[aristotle]

And how do you know the flash packager doesn't make use of the bundle ressources to load images and sound rather than compiling them ? Extracting them from the .swf and putting them in the .ipa in a ressource folder is not exactly black magic...

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/logged_in/abansod_iphone.html

http://www.devwhy.com/blog/2009/10/8/flash-on-the-iphone.html

Okay, so I downloaded one of the games that was available, Trading
Stuff, decompressed its IPA and had a look inside. At first
glance it looked like a pretty normal iPhone app. Then I noticed there were no
resources besides a basic MainWindow.nib. No images, no sounds, no
localizations. The next thing I noticed was that the binary was ~13 megabytes,
or approximately ~95% the size of the entire app. That is enormous for a binary.
For reference, compare that to a normal iPhone game, like The Oregon
Trail, which is ~106 megabyte game has ~1 megabyte executable, or
about 1% the size of the app.

What is going on is that the Flash build environment is not using any of the
standard Mac OS X/iPhone OS bundling or localization mechanisms. Instead they
are transforming all their assets into embeddable objects and shoving them
directly into their application's TEXT section. At first glance that might not
seem so bad, but it has a bunch of consequences. It defeats almost any sort of
caching or prefetch logic the OS has for specific data types (like images), and
instead places all of the pressure directly on the VM and paging subsystems.

So not only is it a resource hog but it will not use any of the localization support in the iPhone OS. As I explained earlier, all of the gfx, sound and text are shoved into the "TEXT" region of the EXE. When you start off learning programming in college using assembly language, you learn that executable have a "CODE" section and a "TEXT" section where you can store things like string defaults and constants. Eventually, you learn that data should be stored in "files" outside of the exe.

 

[WilliamLondon]

By the same token, MS is selling record numbers of Windows 7. Numbers that destroy anything Apple ever did with the OSX and the Mac. You know, in a recession. Just saying.

Quantity is not quality, and quantity does not mean it's better, it just means it sold more.

 

[garybUK]

It really makes me laugh how people here are spouting rubbish about how flash shouldn't be allowed because it's closed sourced and only open sourced should be allowed.

This is coming from people using one of the most closed and paranoid platforms ever.... OSX.

People forget the little open-source trick apple played when developing OSX, make it open-source get help from developers then when it comes to pay-back close source it and stick the middle finger to the dev's.

Same with iPhone / iPad / iPod, why battle to use open standards when it's running one of the most restrictive operating systems.

Flash has indeed got a place in this world, and like it or not, it's here and here to stay in one way or another.

People also forget iPhone is not the huge and successful phone you all wish it to be, in the over-all MOBILE PHONE market it's miniscule.

i'd personally call for Adobe to blockade their products on Mac's and see how apple cope with that..... hell they probably don't care, Apple clearly doesn't care about it's computer / pro machine customers (see Cinema Displays, Macbook Pro's).

Every fad has it's time and the iPhone / iPad is no different.

 

[*LTD*]

People forget the little open-source trick apple played when developing OSX, make it open-source get help from developers then when it comes to pay-back close source it and stick the middle finger to the dev's.

Apple filtered so much code back into BSD that they saved the platform.

It's because of Apple that FreeBSD got somewhere.

Since OS X's initial release in 2001, Apple's been percolating BSD code in and out of the OS X kernel/userland/libs. The code then makes its way right back in to FreeBSD.

By the time Panther was released, Apple's contributions back to FreeBSD had resulted in a FreeBSD milestone, which was 5.x. OS X 10.3 contained parts of FreeBSD 4.9 and 5.1. The things possible with FreeBSD today wouldn't have been possible without Apple.

For example, the VM/SMP code that OS X uses to run efficiently is the same that put FreeBSD on par with Linux.

Apple ensures a robust FreeBSD. A robust FreeBSD ensures a robust OS X. Apple actually puts back, and they have put back more than enough and continue to do so.

 

[Mabus51]

This was posted on another forum. It has an interesting take. I thought you guys might enjoy reading it.

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2010/04/10/five-tremendous-apple-vs-adobe-flash-myths/

 

[csimmons]

It really makes me laugh how people here are spouting rubbish about how flash shouldn't be allowed because it's closed sourced and only open sourced should be allowed.

This is coming from people using one of the most closed and paranoid platforms ever.... OSX.

People forget the little open-source trick apple played when developing OSX, make it open-source get help from developers then when it comes to pay-back close source it and stick the middle finger to the dev's.

Same with iPhone / iPad / iPod, why battle to use open standards when it's running one of the most restrictive operating systems.

Flash has indeed got a place in this world, and like it or not, it's here and here to stay in one way or another.

People also forget iPhone is not the huge and successful phone you all wish it to be, in the over-all MOBILE PHONE market it's miniscule.

i'd personally call for Adobe to blockade their products on Mac's and see how apple cope with that..... hell they probably don't care, Apple clearly doesn't care about it's computer / pro machine customers (see Cinema Displays, Macbook Pro's).

Every fad has it's time and the iPhone / iPad is no different.

Sooo...the iPhone has a near 20% share of the smartphone market, and makes the most money from its handset in terms of revenue than all other handset makers despite having "only" 3% of the total mobile phone market (which was 0% three years ago), and that's miniscule?!?

Perhaps you don't understand the concept: Apple made more money selling <3% of the world's cell phones than Nokia made selling 40% of the world's cell phones. In other words: Apple made more money selling a glass of water than Nokia made selling a tank of water. That's not only miniscule; that's GENIUS.

 

[TennisandMusic]

Just saying what? That Microsoft continues to sell PCs to the low-end of the market? Bargain Bin Ballmer selling PCs loaded with Windows on the cheap. Every PC under the sun comes loaded with Windows. Shocking.

Microsoft licenses their OS universally. Apple does not.

I should hope they sold record numbers of Windows 7!!

It's hundreds of millions of PC users waiting for the Vista nightmare to be over. What did you expect? Poor sales of Windows 7?? What are the alternatives offered by MS? XP and Vista. One is an 8+ year old dog of an OS, the other is a massive flop. That's hundreds of millions of PC users dying for an upgrade after years of getting the shaft. And Apple's Premium end of the market has natural barriers to entry, starting with the $1000 minimum fee. Apple doesn't compete in the market segments occupied mostly by MS. Of course, Apple is now transitioning away from the traditional desktop computer + desktop OS paradigm.

PC users outnumber all others, and always have, whether MS released a good OS or a lousy one - PCs are cheap and now more disposable than ever (netbooks.) The bottom of the retail pyramid is always the widest. The biggest computer-using segment uses PCs. Now throw in an OS that fixes Vista and by sheer force of numbers alone (volume) you'll have a great quarter.

There's no miracle here. Just the massive number of PC users who suffered for years, now jumping at the chance to upgrade. It's nothing new, miraculous or groundbreaking.

It makes no difference whether it succeeds or fails. PC users, by virtue of the low cost of entry into the PC market alone, will always outnumber users of all other platforms. Windows will always sell well, in whatever form, because it can run on the cheapest hardware - and this is what you find the most of. But now, we're seeing highly concentrated sales of a particular version (good news) because everyone was waiting to upgrade and end the XP/Vista pain, which lasted far, far too long.

Do you not realize how myopic your arguments are? Vista is a massive flop? I'm not saying it was the best OS (though I tried it after SP1 and was surprised at how much better I thought it was than XP), but Vista sold a crapload of copies. It was popular. I know you can just say it was because "it's all people can choose!" but that simply is not, and was not, the case. Also, Apple marketing is just that, marketing. Not everyone thinks the "get a mac" ads are accurate. In fact, I imagine many people find them annoying to the nth degree.

People buy Windows because they like it. Does that make sense? Who in their right mind spends money on something they hate?

OSX is not that great. It has several flaws. As does Apple hardware. I own and use both OSX and W7. I just don't understand your viewpoint where one of the largest companies in the world (who is that way solely because of their obscene profit margin, and nothing to do with their sales volume) is some sort of benevolent entity, dedicated to improving the state of humanity, and their competitor (who sells way more product and is way more popular) is some evil, fascist, incompetent disease. I mean, do you actually believe the stuff you say on this forum? It's insanity really.

Steve Jobs, by all accounts is an obnoxious and domineering egomaniac. Yeah, he can turn out nice looking stuff, but end users and his employees definitely suffer as a result (even if all the users don't realize that, or won't admit to it). Apple is not listed in the top 100 best places to work, while their competitors (including Adobe), are.

I like Apple stuff in general. I really do. But they could be doing so so much better with very little effort. Apple could literally be taking the entire computing world by storm IMO (they really aren't right now, not like they could be), if Steve Jobs wasn't such a nutjob. As it stands they are still a minor player with a lot of deficiencies. They are truly setting themselves up for a big fall on their current path.

 

[*LTD*]

LOL! AidenShaw: bus driver.

But can I have my birthday party on the Microsoft Bus?

You'll get to have a hat just like his!

Here's the party:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cX4t5-YpHQ&feature=player_embedded#

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSAXEVXvNz8&feature=player_embedded

Still want in?

 

[Journojulz]

Flash has indeed got a place in this world, and like it or not, it's here and here to stay in one way or another.

Don't resent flash - but don't miss it either.

every site i want to browse on with flash has an app as an alternative

Sorry if your CV is flash heavy, honestly I don't wan't creative people absent from the party.

People also forget iPhone is not the huge and successful phone you all wish it to be, in the over-all MOBILE PHONE market it's miniscule.

yet accounts for 60% of mobile device web browsing.

Double all the competition combined.

Every fad has it's time and the iPhone / iPad is no different.

The same goes for flash.
Was so full of promise when i was working for a uk newspaper new media dept.

But that was before the towers came down and a decade later 95% of web flash is ads or streaming video.

Its like 4x4s (SUVs)- can do amazing things no other vehicle can, but most of them just clog up the road network and get in the way.

 

[csimmons]

If you're going to accuse someone of trolling, then maybe you better learn to recognize one instead of trying to flame/label someone instead of using actual logic or discussion to make your case. Otherwise, you sound like nothing more than another fanboy. I own two Apple Macs, two Apple TVs, an iPod Touch and have OSX on a Dell Netbook (and only one dedicated PC) and I'm somehow a "troll" because I don't blindly worship Apple like you do? You are completely out of touch with reality.

You might want to try another line of defense; declaring how many Macs you have to prove your point is like a closet racist trying to deny his racist tendencies by saying "I know some black people, so I can't be a racist!"

Just sayin'. (I'm not implying you're a racist either, so don't go there if you were thinking about it.)

 

[TennisandMusic]

Oh, and for the record, I really have no problem not allowing these middle ware companies to do their stuff on the platform. I tried Unity iPhone and it had something like a ten megabyte runtime that it had to use...yeah it was fast for getting 3D up and running but on such a small device that's not a trivial thing. If it's truly a multi tasking thing, then sure, cut that stuff out. Make people use XCode, I really don't care (of course, that's what I use). I think it is well within Apple's right to do so, just as it is everyone else's right to develop for Android or the upcoming Windows Phone 7 stuff, which looks fantastic.

 

[tatonka]

Do you work as a software developer? I want to know if I'm talking to a laymen or someone who understands the terminology used in this discussion.
...
When you load gfx through the API, you are making specific calls which the OS is able to detect and you will use variable names for the resources which the OS is also able to detect them but when you use the Adobe tool, the OS cannot make heads or tails of it and there is no class hierarchy in that chunk so you could have a situation where you have two or more Adobe generated apps with the same set of resource names. How is the iPhone OS supposed to keep things straight if there is no structure in the app and there are name conflicts?

I am a software developer .. however I have not much worked with 3D/Graphics in general.

That said. If your OS is having trouble because to ressources in two different programs being launched share a name .. well then you are into deep sh** I agree.

The bloating in those shared apps usually comes from to many lines of code being used and too many libs being linked, not ressources like images being compiled in.

T.

 

[ten-oak-druid]

People buy Windows because they like it. Does that make sense? Who in their right mind spends money on something they hate?

That's not always true. I know several people who liked using my computer but bought a windows machine because they said the mac was out of their price range. They actually preferred OS X but believed the price for the mac was a premium. In the end they didn't save money because after the $499 laptop broke down a year or two later, they had to buy another computer.

The decision is in fact often about money. But actually a little more money up front will often get you a better experience in the long run.

MS is pricing their OS very low and practically giving it away on cheap computers to get the high market share.

 

[csimmons]

Do you not realize how myopic your arguments are? Vista is a massive flop? I'm not saying it was the best OS (though I tried it after SP1 and was surprised at how much better I thought it was than XP), but Vista sold a crapload of copies. It was popular. I know you can just say it was because "it's all people can choose!" but that simply is not, and was not, the case. Also, Apple marketing is just that, marketing. Not everyone thinks the "get a mac" ads are accurate. In fact, I imagine many people find them annoying to the nth degree.

People buy Windows because they like it. Does that make sense? Who in their right mind spends money on something they hate?

OSX is not that great. It has several flaws. As does Apple hardware. I own and use both OSX and W7. I just don't understand your viewpoint where one of the largest companies in the world (who is that way solely because of their obscene profit margin, and nothing to do with their sales volume) is some sort of benevolent entity, dedicated to improving the state of humanity, and their competitor (who sells way more product and is way more popular) is some evil, fascist, incompetent disease. I mean, do you actually believe the stuff you say on this forum? It's insanity really.

Steve Jobs, by all accounts is an obnoxious and domineering egomaniac. Yeah, he can turn out nice looking stuff, but end users and his employees definitely suffer as a result (even if all the users don't realize that, or won't admit to it). Apple is not listed in the top 100 best places to work, while their competitors (including Adobe), are.

I like Apple stuff in general. I really do. But they could be doing so so much better with very little effort. Apple could literally be taking the entire computing world by storm IMO (they really aren't right now, not like they could be), if Steve Jobs wasn't such a nutjob. As it stands they are still a minor player with a lot of deficiencies. They are truly setting themselves up for a big fall on their current path.

No, seriously; tell us how you REALLY feel about Steve Jobs.

You realize you just killed your entire argument with your diatribe about Steve Jobs.

 

[TennisandMusic]

That's not always true. I know several people who liked using my computer but bought a windows machine because they said the mac was out of their price range. They actually preferred OS X but believed the price for the mac was a premium. In the end they didn't save money because after the $499 laptop broke down a year or two later, they had to buy another computer.

The decision is in fact often about money. But actually a little more money up front will often get you a better experience in the long run.

MS is pricing their OS very low and practically giving it away on cheap computers to get the high market share.

No offense, but then those people are idiots. Save up a little longer and get what you want. I'm not saying that you can't like both. I like both OSX and Windows very much, while still recognizing where the problems are in both. But if I hated Windows and loved OSX, and bought a Windows machine just because it was cheaper, wouldn't that make me a fool? Just save up longer if needed.

Your bolded section is completely untrue as well. You can do more in Windows than you can in OSX, and it is extremely stable, secure (if you aren't clueless and installing bad things) and is more versatile and capable than OSX. I would prefer to use OSX all the time, but by nature of how it works Apple won't let me do that.

 

[*LTD*]

People buy Windows because they like it. Does that make sense? Who in their right mind spends money on something they hate?

It's often all they can afford. Or they don't care in the first place.

This is what we learned from the Laptop Hunter commercials, which were laced with more overt Mac envy than you find in an Apple forum on a Saturday afternoon. In April.

 

[TennisandMusic]

No, seriously; tell us how you REALLY feel about Steve Jobs.

You realize you just killed your entire argument with your diatribe about Steve Jobs.

How so? It wasn't a "diatribe" just a discussion of what drives the company. People who work with him state the same opinion. I mean, there are documentaries about Apple where people who claim Steve Jobs is their "hero" say in the same breath that he is obnoxious. Stories of him terrorizing employees are well known.

Do you not know anything about the guy? He is a brilliant marketer and salesman, but in general seems to be a bad dude overall. It's really kinda sad that someone living on borrowed time can still treat others so poorly. There are more important things than money.