[clug] Vaguely off topic: iPeds and other Android tablets - availability and comparisons to that Apple one

Robert Edwards bob at cs.anu.edu.au
Thu Aug 5 18:16:01 MDT 2010


On 06/08/10 08:10, Neill Cox wrote:
> I am a recovering Apple fan boi :) There are 13 functioning Apple devices in
> my household and I don't know how many dead ones, going right back an SE/30.
>
> At this point my take on Apple is that they are indeed a great marketing
> company, but they are also a great engineering company.  Their products are
> well engineered, attractive, not that expensive  and (nowadays) very well
> marketed.  Unfortunately Apple also want to exercise what seems to me to be
> an unreasonable amount of control over the devices they want em to buy.
>
> I'm sure that Apple do comply with their license obligations, and I'm sure
> they considered those licenses very carefully before selecting which OSS
> components to use in their toolkit.
>
> I'm also sure that I don't want to hand Apple the level of control over my
> life that they seem to want.  This is a personal decision and flow from what
> I think is the most important part of F/OSS - that users should control
> their devices, not the other way round. I'm also sadly aware that a
> vanishingly small portion of the population shares (or even understands) my
> concerns.  I wish I was better at expressing them :)
>
> It's kind of sad for me to feel at this point that Microsoft is a more open
> company than Apple.  Perhaps Apple will change one day, but I expect they'll
> need to get rid of Steve and have their own anti-trust moment for it to
> happen.  That's a pity - Steve has done a remarkable job of improving
> Apple's products. It's just a shame that he thinks it's so important to
> control which apps are run, and what features they might contain.
>
> Apple are very defintely not a F/OSS company though, and I'm not sure why we
> are spending so much time talking about them.
>
> Cheers,
> Neill
>

I too, have a pile of current and old Apple devices both at home and
in my office (total of 13 dead Apple laptops, QuickCams, three Newton
MessagePads, a working iPod Video (5G), a still-used 12" Powerbook
G4 running Gentoo, a still-used MacBook Air running Ubuntu sometimes...
and many old Macs including two original 128k Macs (both seriously
modded), an SE/30, and an Apple II, a IIe, a IIc and various home-made
knock-off clones etc.).

My main beefs with the whole iPod/iPhone/iPad marketing blitz are:

1) they are not as original/innovative as their marketing wants us all
to believe - so it is not fair to claim that other devices are "clones";

2) they are not, in any way, "free" (as in beer or speech or whatever);

3) (the biggy) - every time anyone buys one (esp. a FOSS developer),
they are sending a message to Apple's _competitors_ that the Apple iPod
Touch/iPhone/iPad model of software control and distribution is the one
that is now winning the marketing. If Apple's competitors decide to
follow Apple's lead, it cannot be good for the future of consumer
computing.

What can people concerned about the freedom of their consumer devices
do? People like FOSS users and developers? We need to keep sending
Apple and other companies trying on the same tactics the message that
we don't approve of this level of control over our consumer devices.
We do want to be able to put our own software onto the metal (not just
some glorified scripts). We want to be able to replace, if necessary,
the O/S of these devices with something that is, for example, less
likely to be spying on us.

Also, it is a myth that Apple laptops etc. are better made. They are
made in the same factories etc. as most other similar devices - maybe
with a slightly higher level of quality control than _some_ other
products. But having supported Apple h/w for over 20 years alongside
other similar hardware (laptops, desktops, laser printers etc.) I can
say that they fail just as frequently and often take a lot longer to
get repaired and sometimes cost significantly more for repairs. Some
Apple laptop models have a significantly higher failure rate. (cue
for the accolytes to pipe up and claim "yeah, but Apple are pushing
the performance envelope much further than other manufacturers" - OK,
whatever...).

Cheers,

Bob Edwards.


> On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 10:42 PM, Jim Croft<jim.croft at gmail.com>  wrote:
>
>> the same is true in the biodiversity informatics field.  there is a
>> quantifiable trend to portable mac things that can be seen at
>> conferences, etc.
>>
>> the ratio often hit and exceeds 50%. the argument is that they are
>> basically linux inside, you can install what you need, and all the
>> systems and network connectivity look after themselves, and you can
>> concentrate on the work.
>>
>> they have a point, but ideological loathing of the big end of town
>> prevents me following them...
>>
>> but it is not just marketing. the apple industrial design package is
>> very smooth.
>>
>> jim
>>
>> On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 9:25 PM, Mike Carden<mike.carden at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>> On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 9:10 PM, David Austin<david at d-austin.net>  wrote:
>>>
>>>> However if you know a little more than the average about
>>>> technology then Apple is not for you.
>>>
>>>
>>> That's an innocent and simplistic view that I won't leave
>>> unchallenged. While I sympathise with the idea that Apple's target
>>> market is people who will pay for form over function and who love the
>>> fact that (most of) function just follows... it's a bit silly to
>>> suggest that Apple users are not tech savvy.
>>>
>>> Have you been to a FOSS conf in the last 5 years? Count the MacBooks.
>>> FOSS devs *love* Apple. Look at the 'core Apple devs. These people are
>>> not writing Hello World. Their philosophy may not match yours, but
>>> they aren't stupid.
>>>
>>> It happens that I soldered up an Apple IIe when doing so was True Hard
>>> Core. I own an iPod and a (dead) G3 Powerbook. I respect Apple. Apple
>>> do some good stuff and some not so good stuff. To suggest that Apple
>>> is not for the technically savvy is very very funny indeed.
>>>
>>> --
>>> MC
>>> --
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>>> linux at lists.samba.org
>>> https://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/linux
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> _________________
>> Jim Croft ~ jim.croft at gmail.com ~ +61-2-62509499 ~
>> http://www.google.com/profiles/jim.croft
>> 'A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point
>> of doubtful sanity.'
>>   - Robert Frost, poet (1874-1963)
>>
>> Please send URIs, not attachments:
>> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
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>>



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