How can so many people be so devoted to Apple???

I have been a PC user for the past 30 years or so and I was well aware that
Apple almost went out of business before it came up with the iPod, which
saved it, because of their tendency to be so closed-source, propietary and
over-protective of their self interests.

But, I have use iPods, have become invetsed in iTunes, and went ahead and
took the plunge on a new iPad recently. Nice device. At first.

So, what did I find out today? The damn thing won't run Adobe Flash Player
things! I visit sites, such as guitarist sites which have video lessons,
and, well, they won't work on this $600 toy I bought.

So tell me. I'll excuse myself for my naivity in this case, but how come
this kind of self-interest operation hasn't come back to haunt them again?
Why are so many people buying devices that promise a great internet
experience and don't deliver? My Droid X delivers the same sites with little
problem.

On a lesser note, I tried a Netflix account recently. I bought the $39 Apple
wire contraption to stream the movies from the iPad to my HD TV. To find out
what? The iPad is not capable of producing HD video. What genius thought of
this?

It seems to me that the iPad is a limited device meant for kids to play
games on and facebook each other. But they're selling them by the millions.
Ya got me.

In article <4d1973bc$0$24249$607ed4bc@cv.net>, Carl
<crothman@NOSPAMoptonline.net> wrote:

> I have been a PC user for the past 30 years or so and I was well aware that
> Apple almost went out of business before it came up with the iPod, which
> saved it,

actually they were recovering before the ipod. the original imac was
the turning point.

> because of their tendency to be so closed-source, propietary and
> over-protective of their self interests.

except that quite a bit of os x is open source and non-proprietary.

since you dislike closed-source proprietary products, you must also
dislike flash. apple is instead pushing for html5.

> But, I have use iPods, have become invetsed in iTunes, and went ahead and
> took the plunge on a new iPad recently. Nice device. At first.
>
> So, what did I find out today? The damn thing won't run Adobe Flash Player
> things! I visit sites, such as guitarist sites which have video lessons,
> and, well, they won't work on this $600 toy I bought.

you didn't know that ahead of time?

there are probably native apps that do a better job teaching guitar
than those sites, with no flash needed. have you looked?

> So tell me. I'll excuse myself for my naivity in this case, but how come
> this kind of self-interest operation hasn't come back to haunt them again?
> Why are so many people buying devices that promise a great internet
> experience and don't deliver? My Droid X delivers the same sites with little
> problem.

flash is proprietary to adobe, buggy, a security hole and a cpu hog.
it's a slug on just about all android devices.

> On a lesser note, I tried a Netflix account recently. I bought the $39 Apple
> wire contraption to stream the movies from the iPad to my HD TV. To find out
> what? The iPad is not capable of producing HD video. What genius thought of
> this?

it's intended to be a mobile device, not tethered to an hdtv.

> It seems to me that the iPad is a limited device meant for kids to play
> games on and facebook each other. But they're selling them by the millions.
> Ya got me.

maybe you're not the target market.

On 12/27/2010 9:20 PM, Carl wrote:

> So, what did I find out today? The damn thing won't run Adobe Flash Player
> things!

If you did not know that the iPad would not run Flash then you're pretty
clueless. But of course you knew that. And of course you didn't buy one.

On 12/27/2010 9:20 PM, Carl wrote:

> It seems to me that the iPad is a limited device meant for kids to play
> games on and facebook each other. But they're selling them by the millions.

It's for adults too. And Apple makes no secret of the fact that it's not
a general purpose computer. General purpose tablets have never gained a
following outside vertical markets because of their weight, battery
life, and performance. Apple realized that a limited functionality
tablet could become a consumer product.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is trying (again) to come out with a tablet OS that
is based on Windows. This time it'll run on ARM processors. We'll see
what happens. Microsoft is tenacious. Don't write them off.

In message <281220100114371274%nospam@nospam.invalid> nospam
<nospam@nospam.invalid> was claimed to have wrote:

>In article <4d1973bc$0$24249$607ed4bc@cv.net>, Carl
><crothman@NOSPAMoptonline.net> wrote:
>
>> because of their tendency to be so closed-source, propietary and
>> over-protective of their self interests.
>
>except that quite a bit of os x is open source and non-proprietary.

That's a bit of a mis-statement. A lot of OSX is based on open source,
but only small parts of the whole package are actually open source.

>since you dislike closed-source proprietary products, you must also
>dislike flash. apple is instead pushing for html5.

Pushing HTML5 yes, but supporting it in a roundabout way. For example,
when their HTML5 demos were released they had browser-detection in front
of the examples, so non-Safari HTML5 browsers (*cough* Chrome *cough*)
weren't allowed access to the demo. Nothing like bring a
proprietary-ish approach to what is otherwise an open standard.

Similarly, they're working very hard at ensuring that open video
standards aren't widely supported in HTML5.

>> But, I have use iPods, have become invetsed in iTunes, and went ahead and
>> took the plunge on a new iPad recently. Nice device. At first.
>>
>> So, what did I find out today? The damn thing won't run Adobe Flash Player
>> things! I visit sites, such as guitarist sites which have video lessons,
>> and, well, they won't work on this $600 toy I bought.
>
>you didn't know that ahead of time?

Seems like the sort of thing that will be hard to miss, since it's
literally headlined tech news for years (even prior to the iPad's
release)

>there are probably native apps that do a better job teaching guitar
>than those sites, with no flash needed. have you looked?

It wouldn't shock me if certain niches are covered almost exclusively by
Flash. I haven't personally looked at this topic in particular, but it
sounds like the type of niche that won't attract the type of developers
that would rewrite all of their past history to meet new web 2.0
inventions.

I'd have more hope for a proprietary iOS app that can handle the same
data formats that existing Flash apps use.

>flash is proprietary to adobe, buggy, a security hole and a cpu hog.
>it's a slug on just about all android devices.

Well said.

>> On a lesser note, I tried a Netflix account recently. I bought the $39 Apple
>> wire contraption to stream the movies from the iPad to my HD TV. To find out
>> what? The iPad is not capable of producing HD video. What genius thought of
>> this?
>
>it's intended to be a mobile device, not tethered to an hdtv.

Personally I'm a little surprised that Apple released the TV-Out
interface at all given how borderline useless it is. Seems at odds to
the normal Apple approach.

In article <bfblh6hidvs1a79e1msv2eico8cm6sl90u@4ax.com>, DevilsPGD
<Still-Just-A-Rat-In-A-Cage@crazyhat.net> wrote:

> >> because of their tendency to be so closed-source, propietary and
> >> over-protective of their self interests.
> >
> >except that quite a bit of os x is open source and non-proprietary.
>
> That's a bit of a mis-statement. A lot of OSX is based on open source,
> but only small parts of the whole package are actually open source.

that's true, however, people like to bash apple for being closed and
proprietary, when in reality, apple is more open than other platforms.

apple's open source webkit is even used by its competitors, including
google android.

now compare that to the parts of windows that are open source.

In message <291220100048351787%nospam@nospam.invalid> nospam
<nospam@nospam.invalid> was claimed to have wrote:

>In article <bfblh6hidvs1a79e1msv2eico8cm6sl90u@4ax.com>, DevilsPGD
><Still-Just-A-Rat-In-A-Cage@crazyhat.net> wrote:
>
>> >> because of their tendency to be so closed-source, propietary and
>> >> over-protective of their self interests.
>> >
>> >except that quite a bit of os x is open source and non-proprietary.
>>
>> That's a bit of a mis-statement. A lot of OSX is based on open source,
>> but only small parts of the whole package are actually open source.
>
>that's true, however, people like to bash apple for being closed and
>proprietary, when in reality, apple is more open than other platforms.

Yes and no. OSX is more open in that it's based on open source and a
few pieces are open source, this is true.

However, the final product is far more closed/restrictive in that you
can only run it on approved hardware (and even then only on fairly
modern approved hardware, not all 2006 Macs can run modern OSX releases
and absolutely nothing before 2006 runs modern OSX versions) whereas
Windows 7 will run on damn near any hardware you scrape together today
ranging from $300 Netbooks to 5+ year old hardware to high-end
workstations custom built to a user's specifications.

>apple's open source webkit is even used by its competitors, including
>google android.

Yeah, Apple eventually did figure out how to make open source work with
WebKit. Microsoft could learn some lessons here, hopefully skipping the
pre-2005 experience where Apple tried to clobber KHTML.

>now compare that to the parts of windows that are open source.

Yup, this is true.