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The New Apple Advantage

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Re: The New Apple Advantage

#241

Post by salgernon »

antihero wrote: post #204
jrockway wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's an OS X "feature". PT_DENY_ATTACH: http://landonf.bikemonkey.org/code/macosx/Leopard_PT_DENY_AT... "UNIX with a GUI" at its best.

That is utterly fucked up. How dare they say you can't look at the code that is running on the hardware you purchased.

gdb /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunes

(gdb) fb ptrace

(gdb) run

[ breaks at ptrace ]

(gdb) return

[ type 'y' to return to the parent, skipping the call ]

pirate your music or whatever you wanted to do.

I'm not sure who this was supposed to prevent from doing what, although I'm sure that it wouldn't be in there if there wasn't a contractual obligation to do something for the people providing them with content.

Re: The New Apple Advantage

#244

Post by sjwright »

rbanffy wrote: post #208
antihero wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is utterly fucked up. How dare they say you can't look at the code that is running on the hardware you purchased.

You know... You may have a point. Some people may have been spoiled by operating systems like Linux or BSD, where you can look up each and every line of code that comprises the whole software stack, but, in fact, most people don't really care about that. Still, OSX is more open than its main competitor - you can see most of it, but not all. The fact most people don't really care about what they are using is sad, but…

Most people drive their car without knowing how an internal combustion engine works. Most people watch television without knowing that the picture is comprised of pixels (or scan lines). Is that also sad? Must everyone understand everything they use in sufficient detail?

Why should a computer be different?

Why should my mum need to understand what an operating system is, let alone care about it?

Re: The New Apple Advantage

#245

Post by achompas »

dlss wrote: post #172
achompas wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With #2 you're being disingenuous. All computers need some work, but PCs require much more work to uninstall crapware. As for #3, only one of the laptops you listed fits comfortably in my girlfriend's purse. As for the Air's hard drive? She has zero complaints, and I doubt her (or many others) would notice tiny differences in sequential read times (which is, I think, a measure of app-opening performance).

Okay, last reply and then I leave you guys to the fate of irrational happiness paying more for worse hardware. re 2: It takes an hour to reinstall windows. If you swap out the hard drive (so a vertex 3 in a MBP), this is something you have to do with an apple anyway. One hour is not " much more work ". Don't kid yourself. re 3: If the MBA owner does anything CPU intensive they will likely profit by upgrading to the x…

You're here linking benchmark charts, because as a power user you believe power users represent a large subset of computer owners. We don't. We're in the minority.

My girlfriend, and everyone else in the humongous non-power-user subset, does not care about how a Vertex 3 can bury an Air's SSD. She doesn't know the Vertex exists! If she did, she'd probably ask why she should spend $300 on it if her Air already works amazingly well.

We're talking about different groups here. You're talking about the type of people who read computer hardware blogs like Anandtech. I'm talking about everyone else in the world.

Re: The New Apple Advantage

#246

Post by technoslut »

ecaradec wrote: post #199

The Apple way is to design amazing product, I do own an iphone and an ipad and I really like them. Apple does an incredible job at designing products. But the Apple way is also to not be at conferences or shows but their own, to forbid developers to talk about the OS and to sue others companies using their patents. I really dislike Apple, if there was some other company that could do as amazing phones and tablets as…

I think you're looking at it the wrong way. I'm sure that if you were in Apple's position you wouldn't take too kindly to everyone imitating your designs and technological innovations. Companies do have to make money.

You could argue that Apple is too controlling and sometimes they do go too far but that controlling nature also allows for superior products as well. I don't think the perfect solution exists out there for you.

>...forbid developers to talk about the OS...

I'm not exactly sure why you have a problem with this. Yes, devs are asked to sign an NDA but it's their choice to do so and I've yet to see Apple publicly go out after devs for violating their agreement.

> wished some PC maker should make a line of designed PC and deliver them with a raw Windows, without any crapware installed...I talked about it with a friend who is an Apple fan. His opinion was that it couldn't work because PC buyier didn't care...

They don't care. Have you ever tried teaching the average user how to use a computer? The typical response is "I don't really care. I just want to do x". Try selling them on spending a $1000+ on a computer that will only last 3-4 years. They don't see the value proposition and, for those that do, will buy an Apple product because of the brand image. The PC has lost the high end for almost a decade now and I don't think they can get it back. This, along with Apple dominating the supply chain, makes it difficult to compete.

Re: The New Apple Advantage

#247

Post by toadkick »

billmcneale wrote: post #114

Gruber's analysis is flawed because there is currently no competitor to the Apple products he's discussing, so necessarily, anything the competition has to offer today looks silly. But this will change, as it always has when Apple's competition catches up. When this happens, Apple's simplistic "one size fits all" strategy will backfire again like it always has in the past.

You mean like how the competition has caught up with the iPad? Oh, wait...

edit: Also, they've been selling the iPhone 4 for a long time now, it has sold better than all of the previous models, and it's still selling incredibly well in spite of the expectations that a new model will be released soon. Doesn't really seem like the "one size fits all" approach has backfired on them at all, especially when that one size fits so well...

another edit: "there is currently no competitor to the Apple products he's discussing"...isn't that part of the point he was trying to make? That other companies are unable to compete currently because they don't control their supply chain as well or as tightly as Apple is able to, as Apple only offers a few options as opposed to the overwhelming amount of near-useless (to the average laptop buyer) options that the other guys offer?

Re: The New Apple Advantage

#248

Post by philwelch »

dlss wrote: post #90
jseliger wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, you really wanna claim that Apple has an equally confusing product lineup compared to other manufactures? That’s a quite daring claim (and also some impressive misleading quoting you are doing there). Apple doesn’t ask you to decide based on non-sensical marketing blabber like that. They use it, sure, but it isn’t central in the decision process of the buyer. One other point: all three Macs I've owned were ready…

What an odd way to decide which machine you'll use every day for the next year or more. A clean install is really easy -- maybe one hour if you sit and watch it, fifteen minutes if you use your old laptop while it's going... why would you let a cost of Setup time is part of the cost of a system. I'm sure that the apple machine isn't actually ready for you to use it out of the box -- if you're like most HN readers you…

It's just a matter of principle. If I buy a new machine (any type of machine), it should be ready for use as soon as I take it home. If I have to configure it that's fine, but things shouldn't ship broken.

Re: The New Apple Advantage

#249

Post by philwelch »

statictype wrote: post #173
ugh wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, you really wanna claim that Apple has an equally confusing product lineup compared to other manufactures? That’s a quite daring claim (and also some impressive misleading quoting you are doing there). Apple doesn’t ask you to decide based on non-sensical marketing blabber like that. They use it, sure, but it isn’t central in the decision process of the buyer. Go to their store and check out how they do it: http:/…

Until recently, Apple had a 13" Macbook Air, a 13" MacBook and a 13" MacBook Pro. As a first-time Mac buyer last year I was certainly confused about the difference between the plastic MacBook and the MacBook Pro. I find it hard to believe that simplicity of choice is a reason people buy Apple laptops. If you're looking at the various MacBook models, you've pretty much already made a conscious decision to consider buy…

But you can just look at the pictures to tell them apart. Oh, that one's tiny and made of aluminum, that one's bigger and made of plastic, and that one's bigger and made of aluminum. I didn't have to click through meaningless pages of non-differentiating differentiations to see those options, they were right there on the page.

Re: The New Apple Advantage

#250

Post by philwelch »

old-gregg wrote: post #142
Steko wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The two laptops weigh almost exactly the same" Rofl no. "and are the same thickness at the thickest point" If by the same you mean the Mac Book Air is half the thickness of the Lenovo then yes. [edit]It's really hard to take your comment as anything more then a troll when you call other people dim but make basic factual errors like this.[/edit] This is where "configure your own Macbook Air" arguments always end up:…

"Ugly as shit"? I think Lenovo machines in their matte black rubberized cases look gorgeous. It's all about what you've been pre-conditioned to like. I will not buy a laptop with a glass-covered glossy screen. That screen would be useless to me. Also I will not own a laptop without a layout like this: http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2011/03/thinkp... It's called attention to detail and immaculate ergono…

"Try this on your notebook: write a sentence, go and change the 3rd word in it."

No worries, I use vim regardless of OS or hardware.

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