Comments

• Needs Sunlight

  2009-06-15 15:32:42

  Apple screwed up by both going too deep into DRM'd hardware and by failing to embrace ODF in time. However, these could just be symptoms of M$ fans inside apple or of some quiet agreement between Apple and M$.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2009-06-15 15:38:00

  There is a lot of the latter, but many Mac users are in denial over it. We covered some examples of this before.

• Yuhong Bao

  2009-06-18 00:06:54

  Yea, it is extremely interesting because their OSes compete with each other.

• David Gerard

  2009-06-16 00:48:58

  Apple have always been as viciously obsessive control freaks as Microsoft ever were. They just make better stuff.

• Yuhong Bao

  2009-06-16 01:49:38

  On the matter of DRM, what do you think in retrospect about what BN called a 'PR stunt' by Apple now that Apple has completely got rid of DRM from all music in iTunes? I think that letter by Steve Jobs was important because it got the ball rolling.

• twitter

  2009-06-16 03:44:58

  When Apple and M$ OS are free software we can say that media on those platforms is without restriction. In the mean time, both companies reserve the "right" to terminate your software licenses for any reason and regardless of loss to you. iPod and Zune, specifically, are viciously non free and hostile to user's rights. Plug your iPod into another computer, for example, and it will delete all of your media. Both Apple and M$ media formats are patent encumbered, so that they can only be used by non free software. Pretending such media is without restriction is indeed a PR stunt and a careful piece of propaganda.

• Yuhong Bao

  2009-06-16 05:32:01

  Indeed, Steve Jobs was referring to DRM restrictions, not format restrictions. In fact even DRM-free music from iTunes is delivered in 256 kbps AAC.

• Yuhong Bao

  2009-06-16 05:37:38

  If you want MP3s, go to for example Amazon's DRM-free music store or convert from AAC using iTunes (which is possible because the music is now DRM-free). Ogg would be ideal but that is not common enough yet.

• reece

  2009-06-16 06:05:42

  Yuhong: OGG may not be common enough yet, but there are a growing number of media players that support it: Cowon and iRiver, for example. (See http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/PortablePlayers for a list.) There is also RockBox (very good) if you have a player that supports it.

• Yuhong Bao

  2009-06-16 06:09:55

  I am thinking in terms of music stores, not players.

• Finalzone

  2009-06-16 06:33:37

  Magnatune, Jamendo have stored in music in OGG Vorbis format. Granted they are not popular to Itunes but they do exist. With Firefox 3.5, Opera supporting them, the impact will also affect those music store would provide OGG support. The reasons why store like Apple are relunctent are mostly for control.

• Yuhong Bao

  2009-06-15 15:38:05

  "Apple finalizes PowerPC divorce with OS upgrade [good for GNU/Linux, which can neatly occupy those PCs]" Except that unfortunately even Linux is leaving PowerPC behind: http://lowendmac.com/mail/0806mb/0605.html http://lowendmac.com/mail/0806mb/0610.html On the other hand: http://lowendmac.com/mail/0806mb/0611.html#8
  
  And even Apple agrees with you on 7: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/06/apple-takes-a-few-stabs-at-windows-during-wwdc09.ars

• Roy Schestowitz

  2009-06-15 15:41:49

  Except that unfortunately even Linux is leaving PowerPC behind...

  
  
  Not at all. There is more than one PPC-compatible distribution.
  
  

  And even Apple agrees with you on 7...

  
  
  I've expressed no view about Vista 7 in this post.

• Yuhong Bao

  2009-06-15 16:35:48

  "Not at all. There is more than one PPC-compatible distribution." Yes I did indeed mention that other side. "I’ve expressed no view about Vista 7 in this post." Indeed not, I was referring to the views on 7 you have expressed in past posts (for example how it is just another version of Vista) and I am saying that Apple agrees with them.

• Doug

  2009-06-15 16:02:07

  re: They outdid themselves
  
  "So well done, Microsoft! You’ve released a browser that deletes a system file it shouldn’t even LOOK at .."
  
  Get a load of the excuses in the comment section .. :)
  
  http://geekblog.oneandoneis2.org/index.php/2009/06/13/they-outdid-themselves

• Roy Schestowitz

  2009-06-16 09:27:41

  Maybe Waggener spotted and reported that one.

• David Gerard

  2009-06-16 09:34:36

  "Yggdrasil" showed up in the comments, spewing abuse.
  
  Remember: PR is cheaper than coding!

• Yuhong Bao

  2009-06-17 15:41:54

  IMO the best thing to do in cases of problems like this is to debug the problem properly to see what really is at fault for deleting boot.ini.

• Doug

  2009-06-15 16:03:50

  re: They outdid themselves
  
  Get a load of the excuses in the comment section .. :)
  
  "So well done, Microsoft! You’ve released a browser that deletes a system file it shouldn’t even LOOK at .."
  
  http://geekblog.oneandoneis2.org/index.php/2009/06/13/they-outdid-themselves

• amd-linux

  2009-06-15 18:09:04

  Regarding Micro-Soft stagnation, you guys will enjoy this:
  
  The latest browser stats from Germany:
  
  Watch out for flying chairs!
  
  http://www.w3b.org/technik/browserwatch-firefox-enttrohnt-microsofts-internet-explorer.html
  
  http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/0,1518,630459,00.html
  
  http://www.heise.de/newsticker/Mozilla-kontert-Apples-Download-Statistik-fuer-Safari--/meldung/140388
  
  --> FF now at nearly 70% on heise.de and 42.5% (mainstream interests sites) --> Linux another percent point up to 14,8% from 13,8% in March 2009 on heise.de --> FF is still the fastest growing browser on mainstream websites
  
  The trend is Linux' friend, me thinks.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2009-06-15 18:17:50

  Firefox is about 70% here.

• reece

  2009-06-15 23:07:55

  It's interesting how on the pie chart from the first link, IE is at around 50% total market share. Firefox 3 is at 40%, with the remaining 10% taken up by other (Safari, Opera, Chrome) and older browsers (FF2, etc).
  
  Also interesting is that IE8 has a low market share -- lower than IE6. IE used to have a 97/98% market share.
  
  It's also interesting how we are seeing a second 'browser wars' -- this time, it is being fought on standards compliance; Acid2 and the race to Acid3 conformance (between Opera and WebKit, with FF3 doing well and 3.5 even better, but IE as usual dragging the market down); and JavaScript speed, with most of the browsers using some form of just-in-time (JIT) compilation. This time, IE is lagging behind.
  
  You can do some really amasing things with HTML5/SVG/JavaScript, and still be standards compliant. The need for proprietary RIAs like flash and silverlight is vastly reducing. And Mozilla are doing interesting things with pushing browser design and functionality.
  
  This is good for the user. Now, if IE could just disappear, the web would be a better place.

• David Gerard

  2009-06-16 00:51:43

  Maxthon is one of the most popular browsers in China (as I understand it) - Firefox is in the low single digits of share. Maxthon's basically a skin on MSHTML ... until the most recent edition, which is based on Webkit and uses MSHTML only when you tell it to for "compatibility mode."
  
  This sort of thing will drive out popular use of IE even amongst the Windows fans. Firefox and Webkit-based browsers are just better by any measure.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2009-06-16 08:02:08

  Microsoft seemingly pondered embracing those engines too. Some remarks from Ballmer last year...

• David Gerard

  2009-06-17 15:50:46

  I'm sure there's some luckless programmer at Microsoft hard at work to try to make Webkit incompatible with itself.

• twitter

  2009-06-16 03:54:49

  Watch for falling hardware prices. Cool stuff, PowerPC is.

• Marcus Koze

  2009-06-16 08:00:31

  A bit off-topic, but a much better version of the video can be found here: http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1262 (modified voice pattern, a lot better :) awesome piece

• Roy Schestowitz

  2009-06-16 08:02:37

  Thank you.