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Apple has locked me in the same cage Microsoft's built for Windows 10 users

theregister.com

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Re: Apple has locked me in the same cage Microsoft's built for Windows 10 users

#251

Post by macintux »

MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #214
DidYaWipe wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They ARE terrible. They used to be very good at it. Microsoft advanced GUIs more through the '90s than anyone else. Tidy, efficient, and still innovative. Windows 95 through XP pretty much nailed down most of what a GUI needs. Microsoft has since abandoned essential practices that make GUIs work, in addition to abandoning taste and organization. Windows is a sorry shitshow of defective design and defective function.…

Pretty much everything Microsoft did in the 90s with GUIs was just playing catch up with Apple. My first job in 1990, we had a load of PCs running DOS, and one Mac with a GUI and which also played sound and could read laserdisks (as I recall). Changing the error sound to "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that" never got old. Windows 95 just about got to feature parity with the Mac 5 years later. It was really ni…

I worked at a small software store (offshoot from WaldenBooks) sometime around 1990, and I remember a guy coming into the store asking whether a PC was “multimedia ready”.

I didn’t know anything about PCs, having grown up with Apple, but every Mac I’d used had sound and graphics, so I told him as far as I could tell it was all marketing crap.

Never occurred to me that PCs couldn’t do multimedia out of the box.

Re: Apple has locked me in the same cage Microsoft's built for Windows 10 users

#252

Post by Gareth321 »

basisword wrote: post #248
davemp wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s not pretend that Apple could come up with some sort of dual windowing system (or just dual boot) scheme. We’re not limited by drive space anymore. They don’t because it would hurt macbook sales.

Do you mean dual-booting macOS and iOS? If so, they probably don't because it would work like crap. The tablet is a touch based device and macOS isn't optimised for touch. Unless they want to release something very janky they'd need to invest a lot of time making macOS more touch-optimised and I think the number of people that would care about that or use it is miniscule. The tablet and laptop are completely differen…

See Samsung DeX. It's not dual booting like 2000 with Windows and Linux. It's instant, switching from touch to desktop mode when docked. In the case of an iPad, it would switch to desktop mode if a keyboard is attached. It would allow people with an iPad to have a proper desktop experience when docked or connected to a keyboard, and an iPad experience when handheld. It would really be the best of both worlds. To make it easy, the touch display could even be disabled while in desktop mode.

Re: Apple has locked me in the same cage Microsoft's built for Windows 10 users

#253

Post by Yizahi »

p0w3n3d wrote: post #223

I dub the distinction between a tablet and a laptop fake. Tbh they are running the same hardware. I started with Android and first things I did on my phones was to install terminal and ssh. Later it became impossible, because of the changes that were being imposed by Google ("for the sake of my safety"). What I valued Android over IOS was to have access to my files (like DVD-dumped futurama) that I could watch on the…

What's wrong with terminal on Android? I'm regularly using Termux and it works. Don't use ssh there, but it offers to install openssh for me.

Re: Apple has locked me in the same cage Microsoft's built for Windows 10 users

#255

Post by wvh »

mullingitover wrote: post #104

"My decade-old and very well-travelled Toyota Land Cruiser finally died, and I hoped my new-ish ebike could replace it." How that article sounds. I don't care how fancy they make them, iPads are just unserious computing devices for real work.

> iPads are just unserious computing devices for real work.

But are they? Because of the hardware, or because of the restricted operating system?

Most of my work is connecting to other things. With modern devices, it's not as much the hardware, as it is the restricted operating system and closed ecosystem that would limit me. That, and maybe my eyesight...

Re: Apple has locked me in the same cage Microsoft's built for Windows 10 users

#256

Post by walterbell »

basisword wrote: post #247

This was all over the place. The article itself seemingly bares no relation to the headline. Replacing your laptop with a tablet and then complaining that the tablet cannot do the same things as the laptop was a slightly interesting take in 2010. The iPad has now been around for 15 years. A tech journalist being surprised it doesn't have a terminal with root access at this point is baffling.

Google Pixel tablet now has a Debian Linux terminal VM that is isolated from the host Android OS. Apple iPad had VM capability three years ago, but removed it. They could restore that functionality in 2025 to compete with Pixel tablet, which has weaker hardware.

Re: Apple has locked me in the same cage Microsoft's built for Windows 10 users

#257

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

iteratethis wrote: post #233
kelnos wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author's thoughts don't make sense, though. He's expecting a locked-down tablet appliance to suit the same needs and use cases as a laptop running a general-purpose OS. Or at best, he's not expecting that, but is at least complaining about it, which feels a little pointless. He can get what he wants by buying a new Mac, as he suggests. It's not like what he wants doesn't exist. He's just complaining that some oth…

"He's expecting a locked-down tablet appliance to suit the same needs and use cases as a laptop running a general-purpose OS." Which is a perfectly valid complaint since it doesn't need to be locked down. It's an entirely artificial limitation. An iPad pro is like selling a Ferrari that can only turn left at 30mph. I don't understand the "buy something else" mentality. Freedom of computing on hardware you own used to…

An iPad doesn't have the thermals of a laptop. They are not the same device.

People who want root on everything and a command line are a tiny minority of the population.

Most users don't even know what root is. They don't want to know. It doesn't interest them. They don't find it a limitation because command line computing is something they're actively indifferent to.

Having a powerful engine (for burst computing) changes nothing. They still don't care. They want something that runs CapCut or whatever, and that's the extent of their interest in technology.

Re: Apple has locked me in the same cage Microsoft's built for Windows 10 users

#258

Post by lolinder »

Yizahi wrote: post #253
p0w3n3d wrote: post #223

I dub the distinction between a tablet and a laptop fake. Tbh they are running the same hardware. I started with Android and first things I did on my phones was to install terminal and ssh. Later it became impossible, because of the changes that were being imposed by Google ("for the sake of my safety"). What I valued Android over IOS was to have access to my files (like DVD-dumped futurama) that I could watch on the…

What's wrong with terminal on Android? I'm regularly using Termux and it works. Don't use ssh there, but it offers to install openssh for me.

I use ssh on Termux pretty regularly. It's about as smooth as I can imagine a touchscreen terminal being, and took about zero effort to set up.

Re: Apple has locked me in the same cage Microsoft's built for Windows 10 users

#259

Post by fsflover »

futuraperdita wrote: post #87
Closi wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows OS is bad for a tablet compared to iPadOS. iPadOS is bad as a laptop compared to Windows. Nobody yet has been able to fully square the two different paradigms.

ChromeOS balances the different paradigms reasonably well with Crostini and the ability to run Linux-based applications with native hardware virtualization. Solves for every power-user case you can't get from Android or the browser.

It doesn't balance the privacy reasonably well.

Re: Apple has locked me in the same cage Microsoft's built for Windows 10 users

#260

Post by neogodless »

While I think everyone has more than covered the contents of the article, the title is rather ridiculous in itself.

(Note original title in source: "Hardware locks us in Apple's and Microsoft's monopoly cages")

> Microsoft won't let users upgrade their older boxen to Windows 11.

OK but this does not put you in a cage with your older devices. Windows 10 machines are still general computing devices (or personal computer / PC). Eventually, the blocked upgrades will mean the consumer has to choose between installing Linux or buying a new PC.

That's a very different choice from what you have as an iPad owner (if it's your only device.) And as others have pointed out, buying that device was a choice. Arguably misinformed if you thought it was a PC when it is, in fact, a closed-source and locked down tablet.

You mention a Surface Go - so OK you know what a "tablet" that is designed to be a convertible between laptop and tablet looks like and how it works. But just because Microsoft did that, and Apple kind of advertises the iPad that way, doesn't meant Apple and Microsoft put you in the same cage. In fact, they are quite the opposite!

To address that original "monopoly" title - in fact again I think the opposite is happening. Microsoft "forcing" you to purchase something new because you can't "upgrade" to Windows 11. Well actually it drives some people to Linux or Apple. And it's software that is responsible for the issue, not hardware. No wonder you changed the title, but it still doesn't work with your article.

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