Wall Street Journal: The Microsofting of Apple?

[Dexes]

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB2 ... DAyWj.html

and an article in german based on the above for those who prefer it:
http://derstandard.at/1265851882452/Ist ... -Microsoft


Mac vs PC round 200,064,567

[beats me]

The flash issue is for sure an issue and it's mostly a matter of 2 control freak titans posturing while the public suffers.

But the whole laying out the iTunes tie-in like it's some money grab conspiracy is just misleading the public and I know a lot of less savvy computer users will take it at face value. It's like complaining that you can't play PS3 games on an Xbox. Releases for game consoles also have their approval and quality control procedures. It's not a development free for all.

It's also misguiding to insinuate you have to get all your music, movie, and TV show content from the iTunes store because you don't. It's just one of many ways you can get your content that is also the easiest with the integration, but you can still play any media as long as it's encoded in a format that Apple OS reads, and while it doesn't support all formats, there is plenty of free translating software that will encode it to a common format it can read.

[Dexes]

But the whole laying out the iTunes tie-in like it's some money grab conspiracy is just misleading the public and I know a lot of less savvy computer users will take it at face value. It's like complaining that you can't play PS3 games on an Xbox. Releases for game consoles also have their approval and quality control procedures. It's not a development free for all.

It's also misguiding to insinuate you have to get all your music, movie, and TV show content from the iTunes store because you don't. It's just one of many ways you can get your content that is also the easiest with the integration, but you can still play any media as long as it's encoded in a format that Apple OS reads, and while it doesn't support all formats, there is plenty of free translating software that will encode it to a common format it can read.

The EU threatend to smash M$ for pre-installing IE and abusing their monopoly in the OS market to promote their internet browser. Which was only put off by M$ agreeing to sell win7 without a browser in the EU.
And judging by the poularity of all the "i" products I defenatly see a similarity in the way itunes is used on i- Phone/Pod/Pad.
The difference is you have several big companies competeing in the game console market (and most big games are available for all of them) whereas apple is clearly running the mp3player market without any serious competition. So I feel it's a good comparison - actually in a way they're even worse than M$, as IE is free, whereas the itunes store (and not to forget the apps store for i- phone/pad) is a service that users have to pay for.

[ChiDJ]

Face it BM,

The iPAID is a total fail! It's a gimmick to obtain more subscribers to iTunes, iTV and IBooks.

And the Flash issue is huge. Also, the inability to truly multi task on the pad is a Joke!

This from a total Apple Fanboy.

Tod

[beats me]

But the whole laying out the iTunes tie-in like it's some money grab conspiracy is just misleading the public and I know a lot of less savvy computer users will take it at face value. It's like complaining that you can't play PS3 games on an Xbox. Releases for game consoles also have their approval and quality control procedures. It's not a development free for all.

It's also misguiding to insinuate you have to get all your music, movie, and TV show content from the iTunes store because you don't. It's just one of many ways you can get your content that is also the easiest with the integration, but you can still play any media as long as it's encoded in a format that Apple OS reads, and while it doesn't support all formats, there is plenty of free translating software that will encode it to a common format it can read.

The EU threatend to smash M$ for pre-installing IE and abusing their monopoly in the OS market to promote their internet browser. Which was only put off by M$ agreeing to sell win7 without a browser in the EU.
And judging by the poularity of all the "i" products I defenatly see a similarity in the way itunes is used on i- Phone/Pod/Pad.
The difference is you have several big companies competeing in the game console market (and most big games are available for all of them) whereas apple is clearly running the mp3player market without any serious competition. So I feel it's a good comparison - actually in a way they're even worse than M$, as IE is free, whereas the itunes store (and not to forget the apps store for i- phone/pad) is a service that users have to pay for.

That's just stupid of the EU. IE is a browser and you don't have to use it. You can install any other browser and use those. I don't get threatening legal action over a company preinstalling a useful option, and I'm no defender of Microsoft.

You really think it's Apple's fault that other companies can't come up with a decent mp3 player that the majority of people see as solid competition or that they are blocking such attempts? That's also a stupid conclusion.

And I don't know WTF you're talking about with iTunes not being free. It's an application that plays media and it's free. You said iTunes STORE isn't free. Please point me to a STORE that doesn't charge for what they are offering. There isn't some subscription fee or any other fee just to access the iTunes store. And by the way, there are a ton of apps for the iPhone that are free. That's completely up to the developer of each app. Apple doesn't care what you want to charge for it or if you don't want to charge anything for it. The market decides. How can you or anybody have a problem with that or blame Apple?

[beats me]

Face it BM,

The iPAID is a total fail! It's a gimmick to obtain more subscribers to iTunes, iTV and IBooks.

And the Flash issue is huge. Also, the inability to truly multi task on the pad is a Joke!

This from a total Apple Fanboy.

Tod

Flash is a big issue for now. Who do you think will win in the long term? I'm not saying it will be Apple but they do have a history of moving to new technology before it's ready for mass consumption but proves to be successful or the standard later on. There's just some down time. I remember a time when computers all ran off serial and SCSI ports and Apple suddenly ditched those for USB and firewire ports which there was hardly anything available for at the time. Where are we now?

Multi tasking can be changed in a software update so everybody needs to relax on that one.

[ChiDJ]

I'm not techno savvy enough to predict. iPaid just smells like another Newton to me.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/f7a03e ... ts-an-ipad

[beats me]

There's no way the iPad is going to be another Newton. Newton was based on nothing. The iPad is based on the success of the iPhone and iPod touch. Can we all agree those are successful? OK, let's move forward.

Personally I'm looking forward to the games. If I were to do an hour to hour comparison I probably spend more time playing games on my iPhone than I do on my PS3. I'm a big fan of quick load little goofy time wasting games. I don't always have the time or mindset to get into epic adventure games on consoles.

[Hidden Driveways]

There's no way the iPad is going to be another Newton. Newton was based on nothing. The iPad is based on the success of the iPhone and iPod touch. Can we all agree those are successful? OK, let's move forward.

Personally I'm looking forward to the games. If I were to do an hour to hour comparison I probably spend more time playing games on my iPhone than I do on my PS3. I'm a big fan of quick load little goofy time wasting games. I don't always have the time or mindset to get into epic adventure games on consoles.

That's one of the main reasons I'll avoid the iPad. The iPhone games are addicitve enough, if I could sit there on my couch and play them all on a BIGGER SCREEN? Forget it. I may as well sell all of my studio gear and musical instruments because I'd never use them again.

[LoopStationZebra]

Yup. No Flash support is the deal breaker for me.

And the author gets it wrong, as most do these days. Or at least partially correct. While it's true that Flash is a container for a huge amount of video content on the web, it's presence is MUCH larger than that. The interactivity and animated features make it a vast part of websites; particulary in menu work.

Just go to sony.com

The ENTIRE fucking website is Flash. ffs. And that's far from the norm. Flash is everywhere and it's disingenuous to suggest that video is it's key presence. Not even close. This is where the 'HTML 5 will replace Flash' argument utterly falls apart and is spoke of by people who don't know what the fuck they are talking about. HTML might act as a video container replacement for Flash, but all that other stuff? All that animated menu stuff and interactivity that Flash brings. Not even close.

[beats me]

Yup. No Flash support is the deal breaker for me.

And the author gets it wrong, as most do these days. Or at least partially correct. While it's true that Flash is a container for a huge amount of video content on the web, it's presence is MUCH larger than that. The interactivity and animated features make it a vast part of websites; particulary in menu work.

Just go to sony.com

The ENTIRE fucking website is Flash. ffs. And that's far from the norm. Flash is everywhere and it's disingenuous to suggest that video is it's key presence. Not even close. This is where the 'HTML 5 will replace Flash' argument utterly falls apart and is spoke of by people who don't know what the fuck they are talking about. HTML might act as a video container replacement for Flash, but all that other stuff? All that animated menu stuff and interactivity that Flash brings. Not even close.

[LoopStationZebra]

Yup. No Flash support is the deal breaker for me.

And the author gets it wrong, as most do these days. Or at least partially correct. While it's true that Flash is a container for a huge amount of video content on the web, it's presence is MUCH larger than that. The interactivity and animated features make it a vast part of websites; particulary in menu work.

Just go to sony.com

The ENTIRE fucking website is Flash. ffs. And that's far from the norm. Flash is everywhere and it's disingenuous to suggest that video is it's key presence. Not even close. This is where the 'HTML 5 will replace Flash' argument utterly falls apart and is spoke of by people who don't know what the fuck they are talking about. HTML might act as a video container replacement for Flash, but all that other stuff? All that animated menu stuff and interactivity that Flash brings. Not even close.

Haha. BASTARD.


You KNOW I'm a Mac fanboy too. That's what really must chafe your ass.

[LoopStationZebra]

And I don't know if you've really used shill in the correct sense. I mean, I'm not selling Flash or Flash services here, per se. But I do get your point. And it hurts. lol

[ubermnd]

I may be wrong, but isn't flash as a development standard being phased out? What I've read about the upcoming HTML5.0 protocol would seem to indicate that traditional plug-in based web content will be redundant. Maybe someone more clued in can confirm/deny this?

[ethios4]

The EU threatend to smash M$ for pre-installing IE and abusing their monopoly in the OS market to promote their internet browser. Which was only put off by M$ agreeing to sell win7 without a browser in the EU.

And there were similar suits in the US. How does Apple get away with virtually the same thing? M$ was punished for being 'too big' IMO. Hell, they were basically forced to save Apple during Apple's Job-less years.

It's an interesting article. Apple (with Jobs) has definitely shown itself to be way ahead of the curve, so I certainly wouldn't write them off as another M$ anytime soon, but yea without Jobs....who knows?