On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 10:57:23PM -0400, Richard Pieri wrote: > On Apr 10, 2010, at 9:46 PM, Martin Owens wrote: > > Right, and your microwave oven has add on third party modules called > > "food" that can only be bought from the microwave manufacturer's food > > store and in order to use the microwave with non-certified "food" > > products you have to unlock it breaking the warranty. Bovine-droppings! > > That... is a ridiculous analogy. Now, if you want to make a good > kitchen appliance analogy you could compare iPad to, say, a > Cuisinart Elite food processor that only works with compatible > Cuisinart blades. Honestly, as analogies go, I find Martin's to be much more compelling. The only limitation to the food that you can "process" in a microwave is the limit of your imagination. The only *inherent* limit to the "food" (i.e. programs) you can process on your iFoo is also your imagination, however Apple has imposed arbitrary other limitations greatly reducing what can be done, in practice, from what can be done without said arbitrary limitations. > Seriously, you are making a mistake if you think of Apple as either > a hardware or a software company. Apple is neither. Apple is a > user experience company. You can't have a user experience without having a product to use. Apple very much is in both the hardware and software business, whether or not they -- or you -- want to admit it. What Apple (or any vendor) *intends* to be is (or should be) largely irrelevant to the consumer. If a vendor produces a product, and that product is technically capable to be used by its consumer for some purpose without breaking any laws in the process, the vendor has no justifiable right to prevent the user from using it in that fashion. Period. They should not be required to *support* said function, if it is not the intended one. Once I buy it, it's *mine*, and I should be able to use it any way I see fit -- again, barring illegal activities. If that's not the case, then I agree with whoever it was who said you are buying the thing but you don't really ever own it. [An example that's similar, which I think illustrates how this is sleazy, is when a vendor sells, say, two different models of the same stereo receiver which are identical in every way, but one has its remote control sensor (present but) physically disabled, and sells the disabled one at a lower price than the enabled one. It's dishonest.] > I don't want to be a sysadmin when I go home at night. I don't > want to fight with 5 different applications with 52 different, > incompatible design philosophies. [...] And you don't need to. But the option should exist for people who do. If used as Apple intends, you get what you want. But if you want more than that, the device is capable of it, so it should be available. Personally, I'm perfectly fine with Apple saying, "You installed unsupported software which voids your support, so we're hanging up now." I'm completely OK with them installing software on the device that identifies whether unsupported/potentially dangerous software has been installed by the user. I'm even OK with them making it hard to do so... to a reasonable degree. I'm not OK with them attempting to completely bar you from doing it. My money, my device, my prerogative. -- Derek D. Martin http://www.pizzashack.org/ GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02 -=-=-=-=- This message is posted from an invalid address. Replying to it will result in undeliverable mail due to spam prevention. Sorry for the inconvenience.