***
I realise that over the last few weeks there have been an exceptional number of Mac sucks links.
To tidy everything up, I have removed all such links (since March) from their posts and am consolidating them in a new one (with 2 new ones immediately below)
Also, this week's Foxtrot:
"I want to start leaving fake iPhone prototypes on bar stools for tech bloggers to find. If history is any guide, this will send the entire internet into a frenzy of foaming-at-the-mouth analysis and debate.
The first one I'm making will use a car battery and weigh 30 pounds. It'll have those big rabbit ear antennas they used to put on top of TV sets. No sane person will want this phone.
Watching Apple fanboys defend it will be the funniest thing ever!"
New links:
Steve Jobs Still Parking In Handicapped Spaces — The Pictures | Cult of Mac - "Jobs, of course, has a long history of parking in handicapped parking spaces at Apple. The reports go back years, and have recently been documented on Flickr. Since 2006, Jobs’ car has been snapped in handicapped parking spaces at Apple at least five times"
After the Ellen DeGeneres iPhone dust-up, does Apple need to lighten up? - "Earlier this week, Ellen DeGeneres aired a short spot gently poking gentle fun at the Apple iPhone. Emphasis on gentle... On yesterday's episode of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," Ellen explained to viewers that she had been contacted by worried brass at Apple HQ... But Apple, which clearly hoped to win a publicity coup, only succeeded in triggering a backlash. Around the blogosphere today, many critics urged the suddenly-stuffy Apple to chill out. "The recent events make one wonder if Apple needs to get its hands back on the public's pulse... It might help the company's image if someone over in Cupertino reminds everybody to lighten up. Apple sells products that are supposed to be fun and hip""
Previously posted:
The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash - "The App Store and the iTunes Store have taught Steve Jobs that ownership of the sales channel is vital. Even if he's reduced to giving the machines away, as long as he can charge rent for access to data (or apps) he's got a business model. He can also maintain quality (whatever that is), exclude malware, and beat off rivals. A well-cultivated app store is actually a customer draw. It's also a powerful tool for promoting the operating system the apps run on. Operating system, hardware platform, and apps define an ecosystem... Any threat to the growth of the app store software platform is going to be resisted, vigorously, at this stage. Steve Jobs undoubtedly believes what he (or an assistant) wrote in his thoughts on flash: "Flash is a cross platform development tool. It is not Adobe's goal to help developers write the best iPhone, iPod and iPad apps. It is their goal to help developers write cross platform apps." And he really does not want cross-platform apps that might divert attention and energy away from his application ecosystem"
Jobs in 1984: "It is now 1984. It appears IBM wants it all. Apple is perceived to be the only hope to offer IBM a run for its money. Dealers initially welcoming IBM with open arms now fear an IBM-dominated and -controlled future. They are increasingly turning back to Apple as the only force that can ensure their future freedom. IBM wants it all and is aiming its guns on its last obstacle to industry control: Apple. Will Big Blue dominate the entire computer industry? The entire information age? Was George Orwell right?"
Apple vs. Gizmodo: Was the 1984 ad a prediction of the Apple to come? - "There are times I admire Apple and there are times when I wonder if the folks there have lost their collective minds... every company I've ever watched get massive power has misused that power... Steve Jobs has always had power issues. You may recall he was fired from his own company for trying to misuse his power to remove a CEO improperly. He misused his power again in having his options backdated and was the only CEO I'm aware of that kept his job and one of the few who didn't go to jail... [Apple's marketing is like] getting [dogs] ravenous by holding raw meat in front of their faces and then punishing them when they broke the fence down... In general, when you are in Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, HP, AT&T's class the only real danger is yourself"
Apple Gestapo: How Apple Hunts Down Leaks - Apple Worldwide Loyalty Team - "They call themselves the Worldwide Loyalty Team. Among some employees, they are known as the Apple Gestapo, a group of moles always spying in headquarters and stores, reporting directly to Jobs and Oppenheimer... It felt like a description of the Gestapo, without the torture and killing part... it makes me realize how much Apple has changed. From a happy hippie company, to a company that does KGB-style lockdowns and Gestapo interrogations that end in suicides"
The Competition: iPhone OS 4.0 vs webOS in depth - "Apple’s found themselves playing catch-up for the first time since revealing the iPhone more than three years ago, and it shows... Oh, and you can change the home screen wallpaper now. Exciting times, eh?"
Apple Gets Sneaky In Blocking Flash From iPhone - "In the iPhone 4.0 SDK beta unveiled Thursday, Apple changed the terms of its iPhone Developer Program license agreement to prohibit cross-compilers, which allow developers to write iPhone apps using languages other than Apple's Objective-C... "Looks like it's Apple's way or the highway," said Scott Stanfield, CEO of Richmond, Calif.-based Microsoft partner Vertigo Software. "If Microsoft did this, people would be screaming bloody murder." This is an aggressive move on Apple's part and one that effectively requires developers to buy Macs in order to write apps for the iPhone and iPad... "Adobe is lazy. Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy. Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it's because of Flash," Jobs reportedly said at an Apple town hall meeting in January"
A: Hmm, I dun remember Windows ever crashing because of flash...
B: the real reason why apple doesn't want flash on the iphone is so that people will have to buy/write apps, instead of just playing flash games. apps are controllable via itunes, and apple gets a share of the profits; with flash games or widgets apple gets nothing... a fair number [of apps are shallow copies of what you'd get on a webpage with flash], and you have to wonder whether it's worth cluttering up a phone with all these wasteful 'apps'.
[Addendum:
The Flash Blog » Apple Slaps Developers In The Face - "This is a frightening move that has no rational defense other than wanting tyrannical control over developers and more importantly, wanting to use developers as pawns in their crusade against Adobe... Apple employees are forbidden from blogging, posting to social networks, or other things that we at companies with an open culture take for granted... We are not looking to abuse our loyal users and make them pawns for the sake of trying to hurt another company. What is clear is that Apple most definitely would do that sort of thing as is evidenced by their recent behavior... Go screw yourself Apple.
Comments disabled as I’m not interested in hearing from the Cupertino Comment SPAM bots."]
I'm Really Worried About What Apple Is Trying To Do With The iPad - "Apps are more closed, contained, controlling. That, again, is why media companies like them. But they don’t interoperate — they don’t play well — with other apps and with the web itself; they are hostile to links and search... The mobile (that is to say, constantly connected) war will be won on apps. Google is competing with openness, Apple with control... Though many commercial brands — from Amazon to Bank of America to Fandango — have written for both Apple and Android, many media brands — most notable The New York Times and my Guardian — have written only for Apple and they now are devoting much resource to recreating apps for the iPad"
Emphasis mine, e.g. See above
Pwn2Own 2010: Google Chrome is the last man standing - "Pwn2Own 2010 is under way, and after day one of the annual security showdown the results are darn near an exact replica of last year's. Safari was the first to fall, followed by Internet Explorer 8 on Windows 7. Firefox on Windows 7 x64 was also taken down, as was the iPhone's mobile Safari. Google Chrome, however, has yet to succumb... Gotta love security by obscurity -- am I right, Apple fans?"
Safari is even less secure than Internet Explorer 8. Hurr hurr
Mac security expert: "OS X is safer, but less secure." - "After he hacked a Mac in seconds, famed Mac security analyst Charlie Miller is ready to do it again: he intends to disclose the method he used to find up to twenty zero day security holes in Apple’s Mac OS X at this year’s CanSecWest... “Mac OS X is like living in a farmhouse in the country with no locks and Windows is living in a house with bars on the windows in the bad part of town.”"
The New App Store Rules: No Swimsuits, No Skin, And No Innuendo - "Developer Jon Atherton, who is behind the popular application Wobble... spoke to an Apple employee... 'No skin (he seriously said this) (I asked if a Burqa was OK, and the Apple guy got angry)'... These moves are pretty ridiculous given the fact that the iPhone offers a full set of parental controls... After making around $30,000 last year from the App Store, he’s essentially lost his income. And Wobble’s company, which was pulling in around $500 a day, is now making less than $10. Apple gave these developers the green light to build “sexy” apps, and now that they’ve built businesses around them, it’s tossing them aside without so much as an apology. To Apple, they’re expendable."
Daring Fireball: This Apple-HTC Patent Thing - "'A lot of companies (Microsoft, for example) have been granted large numbers of preposterously over-broad patents, but they keep them mainly for defensive purposes. Like nuclear weapons, the main role of big companies’ patent portfolios is to threaten anyone who attacks them with a counter-suit'... 'If Apple becomes a company that uses its might to quash competition instead of using its brains, it’s going to find the brainiest people will slowly stop working there. You know this, you watched it happen at Microsoft'... 'Apple is inching ever closer to evil, and I worry that there’s no one within the company who can stand up to Jobs and tell him so'"