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Apple is a traditional business

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Re: Apple is a traditional business

#231

Post by scarface74 »

hungerstrike wrote: post #226
scarface74 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Window Manager - nothing stopping you from using XWindows. The Finder - it's just a file manager, what's stopping you from using any other file manager? Cocoa - is just a Framework for building Mac apps. Nothing stopping you from using another Framework Xcode - just an IDE on top of open source build tools. IMessage - just a messaging program. Nothing stopping you from using another messaging program. FaceTime -…

Pfffft. Yeah there's "nothing stopping you" except for everything. You can't get rid of the window manager, the Finder or the Dock. Heck, you can't even stop Finder from running in any supported way and even if you manage to, you can't replace Finder in every program to open or save files. You can't replace the Dock because Apple won't let you modify a private API for describing available screen space. Every Dock rep…

Quitting the Finder:

https://www.howtogeek.com/259378/how-to-quit-the-finder-in-o...

Run x11 on the Mac.

https://www.xquartz.org/

I found the link from an Apple support page.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201341

The Finder isn't used to "save files".

But alternate file managers...

https://lifehacker.com/5824343/the-best-alternative-file-bro...

Re: Apple is a traditional business

#232

Post by abritinthebay »

IncRnd wrote: post #194
abritinthebay wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean... if you're playing that kind of naive equivalency then the first "smartphones" were the early PDA/Phone hybrids like the HP OmniGo 700LX, the pdQ, or the Nokia 9000 Communicator. But that would be silly, because the modern "smartphone" era was absolutely started with the iPhone.

You misunderstand. My answer was to refute that the innovation in smartphones came about with the iPhone and not the LG Prada which was released the year prior, market penetration notwithstanding. I was talking about smartphones in the vein of the iPhone not of the technology that could be assembled to make a phone. HP OmniGo 700LX, pdQ, and Nokia 9000 Communicator didn't have touchscreens and were like night and day…

Nothing in the LG Prada was innovative - it's design was that of PDAs from a decade before. It's touchscreen did nothing that previous models hadn't.

Was it a nice industrial design? Yes. Wasn't very original though (and neither was the iPhone's).

You're also shifting the goalposts - you said smartphone, not "had a touchscreen". It was the first capacitive touchscreen but not even close to the first touchscreen btw. The IBM Simon in 1992 likely takes that win.

What the iPhone did that was innovative was in how it improved upon and combined the technology. It also pushed forward a lot of things in those technologies by several large leaps.

Long story short - the LG Prada is superficially visually similar to an iPhone and, likewise, bringing it up shows a very superficial understanding of the history of the mobile phone space.

Re: Apple is a traditional business

#233

Post by hungerstrike »

scarface74 wrote: post #231
hungerstrike wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pfffft. Yeah there's "nothing stopping you" except for everything. You can't get rid of the window manager, the Finder or the Dock. Heck, you can't even stop Finder from running in any supported way and even if you manage to, you can't replace Finder in every program to open or save files. You can't replace the Dock because Apple won't let you modify a private API for describing available screen space. Every Dock rep…

Quitting the Finder: https://www.howtogeek.com/259378/how-to-quit-the-finder-in-o... Run x11 on the Mac. https://www.xquartz.org/ I found the link from an Apple support page. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201341 The Finder isn't used to "save files". But alternate file managers... https://lifehacker.com/5824343/the-best-alternative-file-bro...

Yes thanks, that's what I was laughing about. You can attempt to run such a system, but since nobody does (and for good reason) all your tinkering will be in vain and you'll have a fairly useless system. Enjoy that!

You can't actually tinker with the things that you want to use though, can you? Nope. Again, Microsofts offerings simply outclass Apple here - they've got hooks to let you modify just about every interface in Windows whereas with Apple you have to resort to basically re-building your entire OS for the right to tinker.

Apples offerings are simply not tinker-friendly and everybody knows this, notwithstanding desperate attempts from the Apple-faithful to disagree.

> The Finder isn't used to "save files".

Yes it is. The GUI components for every "save file" operation in almost every existing Mac app are absolutely sourced from and tightly integrated with Finder.

Re: Apple is a traditional business

#234

Post by scarface74 »

hungerstrike wrote: post #233
scarface74 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quitting the Finder: https://www.howtogeek.com/259378/how-to-quit-the-finder-in-o... Run x11 on the Mac. https://www.xquartz.org/ I found the link from an Apple support page. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201341 The Finder isn't used to "save files". But alternate file managers... https://lifehacker.com/5824343/the-best-alternative-file-bro...

Yes thanks, that's what I was laughing about. You can attempt to run such a system, but since nobody does (and for good reason) all your tinkering will be in vain and you'll have a fairly useless system. Enjoy that! You can't actually tinker with the things that you want to use though, can you? Nope. Again, Microsofts offerings simply outclass Apple here - they've got hooks to let you modify just about every interfac…

So I just showed you how you could do it with links and because "no one does it" that means it "can't be done". Have you thought that the reason "no one does it" is because most people don't want to muck with their systems and just want to get stuff done?

You want to "tinker with the kernel" but you are complaining about modify a plist?

Re: Apple is a traditional business

#235

Post by mercutio2 »

snowwrestler wrote: post #143
jxdxbx wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of Apple's R&D spending is not categorized as R&D. R&D spending is for basic tech research not product development.

And my understanding is that companies have considerable latitude in designating whether a particular activity is "R&D" or not. R&D expenditures don't seem like a metric that can be precisely compared across companies, or even reliably connected to future business success. It's not like companies that report the highest R&D spending are always the ones winning.

I agree with your second paragraph, but quibble with the first.

I don’t think there’s that much latitude. The IRS routinely questions companies large and small, in detail, about whether they were really developing new products, or just polishing/improving existing products. The former counts as R&D (and gets favorable tax treatment), the latter is not.

The test is more complicated than this, but latitude is not a word I would associate with this term of art.

Re: Apple is a traditional business

#236

Post by mattmcknight »

MBCook wrote: post #74
beamatronic wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those of us who were PDA users in the late 90s and Treo users in the early 2000s, the iPhone is an incremental improvement on those ideas. The presence of ubiquitous wireless networking (I am lumping cellular wireless and WiFi in together) was the real game changer. If you are not convinced, try this thought experiment: Imagine yourself in 1998 standing on the street in a major city holding a Palm pilot. It has a…

It was not an incremental leap. It was MASSIVE. Yes, all the technology was there. We had smartphones and they would have continued without the iPhone. The value of the internet in your pocket is too big for the smart phone not to become a huge thing. Eventually. But Apple NAILED the UI. They made it so simple that 3 year olds can use the UI and are confused when other computers don’t work through such great touch co…

The original iPhone didn't have the AppStore. It was an incremental development on the original iPhone.

Palm and Blackberry devices at the time did have AppStores. I was a happy Treo user...and the iPhone didn't have the ability for me to build apps for it. I also used my finger to touch the screen.

What the iPhone didn't have was a physical keyboard. That was the primary design innovation.

Re: Apple is a traditional business

#237

Post by rahulrrixe »

jmull wrote: post #53
airstrike wrote: post #27

I only wish the author hadn't forgotten to mention the quintessential non-Apple company: SNAP[0] Many say the current game of musical chairs is overdue for a pause. My money (not literally) is on Tech stocks taking the biggest hit. But as the article put it, Apple isn't a Tech company -- it's a manufacturer (and superb retailer!) of products that are observably differentiated, as they clearly command higher prices fo…

> But as the article put it, Apple isn't a Tech company That's not what the article says. In fact, it says "Apple is the perfect tech company..." I'd like to hear a definition of "tech company" and doesn't include Apple.

I think Apple is a true tech company. How can you define a tech company? it has got holds on both hardware and software for its ecosystem. Doesn't that make it a tech company?

At this stage, if any company which can create an OS like iOS would be considered tech company leaving aside the hardware part.

Re: Apple is a traditional business

#238

Post by snowwrestler »

mercutio2 wrote: post #235
snowwrestler wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And my understanding is that companies have considerable latitude in designating whether a particular activity is "R&D" or not. R&D expenditures don't seem like a metric that can be precisely compared across companies, or even reliably connected to future business success. It's not like companies that report the highest R&D spending are always the ones winning.

I agree with your second paragraph, but quibble with the first. I don’t think there’s that much latitude. The IRS routinely questions companies large and small, in detail, about whether they were really developing new products, or just polishing/improving existing products. The former counts as R&D (and gets favorable tax treatment), the latter is not. The test is more complicated than this, but latitude is not a wor…

I get why the IRS would be interested in companies trying to hide operations inside the favorable tax treatment of R&D, but do you think the opposite is also true? Would the IRS (or SEC) care if a company underreported its R&D spending by choosing to classify new product development as a typical expense?

Re: Apple is a traditional business

#239

Post by ocdtrekkie »

technofiend wrote: post #188
Rjevski wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iPhone SE, or previous models are definitely affordable, and it seems like a good investment considering these devices are supported for 4 years on average, so on a 2 year-old second-hand device you’ll still get 2 years more of security updates, which is something Android can only dream about. Will you also complain about Samsung because their flagship is too expensive?

To be fair the latest Android devices offer three years of updates, so they're now somewhere in the middle. https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705?hl=en >Pixel phones get security updates for at least 3 years from when the device first became available on the Google Store, or at least 18 months from when the Google Store last sold the device, whichever is longer. After that, we can't guarantee more upda…

Bear in mind, the fact that they can't commit to two years after final sale means they are selling devices that will be insecure before the average two year cycle people tend towards with phones.

Selling a phone as "new" that doesn't have at least two years of life from the date of sale should probably be referred to a consumer protection bureau.

Re: Apple is a traditional business

#240

Post by ocdtrekkie »

rhino369 wrote: post #50
ekianjo wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because it's the only option that takes privacy and security seriously right now. iPhones are a luxury. If you can recommend them it means you already belong to the richest part of the planet. For the rest, they jut can't afford it, and Apple was never interested in making anything cheap.

iPhones are somewhat more expensive than their competition. But the iPhone SE or 6S are decent mid-market smartphone choices.

People often seem to forget that given Apple's five year or so iOS update coverage, buying an "outdated" iPhone is actually a reasonable option.
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