nuckinfutz
May 7, 11:09 AM
Yes, but a la Google works. MobileMe is crap. So if they make it free then you'd either get free crap without ads, or free stuff that works with ads. Seems fair.
I use Mobileme every day and it comes through for me every time. I also use it knowing that when i'm reading my email it's just me reading it not some automatic data mining program watching my every move.
Think about this. Your life, your privacy and ability to communicate without someone watching was sold down the river for a pittance. It's seems fair to you because your are the one that gets capitalized on in a capitalist society.
I use Mobileme every day and it comes through for me every time. I also use it knowing that when i'm reading my email it's just me reading it not some automatic data mining program watching my every move.
Think about this. Your life, your privacy and ability to communicate without someone watching was sold down the river for a pittance. It's seems fair to you because your are the one that gets capitalized on in a capitalist society.
ctdonath
Mar 29, 10:53 AM
not really true. it depends on what kind of storage options they are currently running, there are many devices and programs out there that eliminate this kind of redundancy and odds are amazon is using them right now.
Technically, yes.
Legally, no.
There have been assorted lawsuits which ruled if you're going to "buffer" data for a consumer, you have to keep a copy for each customer - no "well, these people are storing the same thing so let's just store one copy". Stupid, but true. Amazon's way around this was obviously to make arrangements with publishers (or to have some creative lawyers leveraging a particular position) allowing the seller to keep one copy and give customers access to that one.
Upshot: buy it from Amazon, they use one copy and tout "free storage"; upload it to Amazon's storage, they have to store that copy independent of any other duplicates.
Technically, yes.
Legally, no.
There have been assorted lawsuits which ruled if you're going to "buffer" data for a consumer, you have to keep a copy for each customer - no "well, these people are storing the same thing so let's just store one copy". Stupid, but true. Amazon's way around this was obviously to make arrangements with publishers (or to have some creative lawyers leveraging a particular position) allowing the seller to keep one copy and give customers access to that one.
Upshot: buy it from Amazon, they use one copy and tout "free storage"; upload it to Amazon's storage, they have to store that copy independent of any other duplicates.
kiljoy616
Apr 20, 01:04 AM
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19736_7-20046412-251.html#addcomm
So this is what you have to do to get some battery life out a bigger phone.
No thanks. The dual core is sweet, but have to wonder how the battery life will go down. I am not to excited about the next gen the more I read about how little battery life 4G phones and Dual Core phones are doing. :eek:
So this is what you have to do to get some battery life out a bigger phone.
No thanks. The dual core is sweet, but have to wonder how the battery life will go down. I am not to excited about the next gen the more I read about how little battery life 4G phones and Dual Core phones are doing. :eek:
dornoforpyros
Sep 15, 07:50 PM
damn I hope this is true, I'm getting tired of sounding like a broken record but "if the C2D MBP isn't released this time I'm just buying the current model"
I'm not even sure if I believe myself anymore :rolleyes:
I'm not even sure if I believe myself anymore :rolleyes:
psychofreak
Nov 26, 12:48 PM
Not. Gonna. Happen. The tablet market is very small, and for good reason. Why use a tablet when a laptop fits the bill? Or a PDA? It's a glorified scribble toy. Apple's not going to try and grab such a miniscule market. There's no reason to even try.
As people mentioned, one could have said the same thing about mp3 players before the iPod.
"Not. Gonna. Happen. The mp3 player market is very small, and for good reason. Why use an mp3 player when a minidisk or CD fits the bill? Or a cassette? It's a glorified walkman. Apple's not going to try and grab such a miniscule market. There's no reason to even try"
As people mentioned, one could have said the same thing about mp3 players before the iPod.
"Not. Gonna. Happen. The mp3 player market is very small, and for good reason. Why use an mp3 player when a minidisk or CD fits the bill? Or a cassette? It's a glorified walkman. Apple's not going to try and grab such a miniscule market. There's no reason to even try"
bella92108
Apr 5, 01:47 PM
2010 - Apple Loses #1 Mobile OS spot to Android OS
2011 - Apple pisses off their JB customers and loses 10% more
2012 - Apple loses #2 and #3 spot to Windows Mobile & HP OS
Within 12 months Apple will own the same market share as their computers, 9% ... and it'll have been the same story: rose to glory, abuse the customer and business partners, people get sick of the rulebook and leave for more open pastures.
This is all deja vu from the 80s repeating itself, wow.
I dumped iPhone at xmas, now I'll likely dump iPad 2 if this trend continues. If they really push the washington involvement to stop jailbreaking, I'll get rid of my 3 iMac\MB Air\MB Pro... I don't support companies who attack me. They're here because of me, not the opposite. If they don't get that, adios.
2011 - Apple pisses off their JB customers and loses 10% more
2012 - Apple loses #2 and #3 spot to Windows Mobile & HP OS
Within 12 months Apple will own the same market share as their computers, 9% ... and it'll have been the same story: rose to glory, abuse the customer and business partners, people get sick of the rulebook and leave for more open pastures.
This is all deja vu from the 80s repeating itself, wow.
I dumped iPhone at xmas, now I'll likely dump iPad 2 if this trend continues. If they really push the washington involvement to stop jailbreaking, I'll get rid of my 3 iMac\MB Air\MB Pro... I don't support companies who attack me. They're here because of me, not the opposite. If they don't get that, adios.
kavika411
Mar 29, 08:53 AM
there is no subscription
you buy music from amazon you download an mp3. or you upload your own and listen to it on an android phone. if you stop using the service you still have your music on your computer
I may have missed it, but what I'm trying to understand with Amazon's offering, and with what we think Apple will roll out, is whether you can push non-purchased music (i.e. CDs you ripped) into the cloud. That may not interest other people, but I'd like to be able to do that.
you buy music from amazon you download an mp3. or you upload your own and listen to it on an android phone. if you stop using the service you still have your music on your computer
I may have missed it, but what I'm trying to understand with Amazon's offering, and with what we think Apple will roll out, is whether you can push non-purchased music (i.e. CDs you ripped) into the cloud. That may not interest other people, but I'd like to be able to do that.
justinLONG
Mar 29, 10:56 PM
I would not want to work in an american plant that manufactured apple products. could you imagine that?. there would probably be an apple union i'd have to join. :eek:
dontwalkhand
Apr 20, 01:18 AM
Wirelessly posted (iPhone : Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_6 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8E200 Safari/6533.18.5)
I am happy for this, this means when my upgrade happens, iPhone 6 will be a HUGE one :-)
I am happy for this, this means when my upgrade happens, iPhone 6 will be a HUGE one :-)
CalBoy
May 5, 02:27 PM
Sorry it took so long to respond to this; I assure you it took only a second to Google (this is just the first result I found):
http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/pays-off.html
All of that is about the private sector switching to save money on their bottom line, something which I already mentioned should happen (and will without intervention).
The question is if the government mandated the metric system for EVERYTHING, from speed limits on the roads to the measurements on a box of Betty Crocker brownies. Many of these things won't actually lead to any increased economic efficiency because certain products can only be produced locally (say weather reports) and consumed locally. The cost of these industries switching would be quite expensive with no real economic gain because the products and services can't be exported or imported.
Is that wink a small admission of how silly your system really is? :) Sure, the math was simple, but how meaningful are all these crazy fractions? If I actually had to try and picture what these fractions represent, I'd want to convert the denominator into a multiple of 10 first in order to try and picture it. I might note that twice 48 is roughly 100, so I know we're dealing with a bit over 26%. Other fractions could prove more difficult. With the metric system, you never have to do this. You're always dealing with base-10, which is something we all understand and can picture, without having to memorise particular fractions and what they represent.
No the wink was just to say that 1) I would use a calculator, and 2) even if I couldn't, multiplying fractions is not hard at all.
Well, we could certainly argue that international communication would be a LOT simpler if there was only one language � and it would be! However, the reality is, we have a world with not only a diversity of language, but a diversity of culture, and the two are intricately linked. That makes the world a very interesting place, and being able to speak multiple languages would be a wonderful skill to have when travelling and engaging in other cultures. People are generally proud of their heritage, culture and language, and there aren't too many people suggesting the world should lose all of that richness in the interest of conformity. (Well, there are such people, but I think we can agree they're generally pretty scary.)
This is off topic, but language is but one part of culture. Customs, celebrations, and even measures, are all marks of a culture. In the process of colonization and free trade, we've actively destroyed many languages, customs, celebrations, and measures. I think we typically don't consider the loss of a measurement system to be too catastrophic because of the many conveniences that can be had from uniformity. But the same is true for language as well. I think the real reason we tend to gloss over measures is because they are typically easier to learn than a new language. Anthropologically speaking, however, they are very valuable in exploring a culture.
What is different about the US that it can't do likewise? I honestly find it perplexing. Be honest now� Is it because the French invented it?
Ultimately I think it comes down to the fact that the US is one of the few countries that had a great deal of popular sovereignty determine the outcome of whether or not we should switch to the metric system. Most other countries enacted policy through a quiet parliamentary action that was later carried out by agencies or at a time when most people weren't active in politics. Still others had theirs done at the point of a gun.
In the US there are a lot of veto points in the legislative process, making any significant change hard to do. Americans also tend not to have a great deal of respect for the sciences (scientific literacy is appallingly low) so it makes it a tougher pitch to the everyday person. Then there's also the issue that to most it's a solution for a problem that doesn't exist; why should they care about a measurement system when the one they are using right now is working for them?
You're not stepping out onto the moon this time. Just about every other country on the planet (and there are quite a few of them!) have gone before you, and it worked out just fine. Sure, it takes some time, but not as long as you might like to imagine. Let me come back to my own experience� I was born in the 70s, around the time Australia was just starting to transition to the metric system. The older folk may well have had a difficult time with it, but if so I was blissfully unaware of it. I came to learn what an inch was, since most rulers had inches on one side and mm/cm on the other, and people still, to this day, casually talk about their height in feet and the weight of newborn babies in pounds. (Yes, some old habits die hard.) But these sort of things are the exceptions. The transition to metric was so efficient, I, as a first generation growing up with it, didn't even notice there was a transition happening.
Seriously, you should be looking to Australia and other countries with successful transitions and learning from them, instead of just perpetuating all these fanciful stories of how terrible it's going to be to change.
The issue goes beyond just the prescribed time period to shift, however. As I mentioned above, there are a lot of infrastructure concerns. Not to mention that Australia in the 1970s was 13 million people, or about 24 times smaller than the current US population. The only other countries that were on this scale were India and China when they transitioned, and both had much less infrastructure and an already illiterate population that could be trained from the ground up.
Any realistic transition for the US would take decades.
http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/pays-off.html
All of that is about the private sector switching to save money on their bottom line, something which I already mentioned should happen (and will without intervention).
The question is if the government mandated the metric system for EVERYTHING, from speed limits on the roads to the measurements on a box of Betty Crocker brownies. Many of these things won't actually lead to any increased economic efficiency because certain products can only be produced locally (say weather reports) and consumed locally. The cost of these industries switching would be quite expensive with no real economic gain because the products and services can't be exported or imported.
Is that wink a small admission of how silly your system really is? :) Sure, the math was simple, but how meaningful are all these crazy fractions? If I actually had to try and picture what these fractions represent, I'd want to convert the denominator into a multiple of 10 first in order to try and picture it. I might note that twice 48 is roughly 100, so I know we're dealing with a bit over 26%. Other fractions could prove more difficult. With the metric system, you never have to do this. You're always dealing with base-10, which is something we all understand and can picture, without having to memorise particular fractions and what they represent.
No the wink was just to say that 1) I would use a calculator, and 2) even if I couldn't, multiplying fractions is not hard at all.
Well, we could certainly argue that international communication would be a LOT simpler if there was only one language � and it would be! However, the reality is, we have a world with not only a diversity of language, but a diversity of culture, and the two are intricately linked. That makes the world a very interesting place, and being able to speak multiple languages would be a wonderful skill to have when travelling and engaging in other cultures. People are generally proud of their heritage, culture and language, and there aren't too many people suggesting the world should lose all of that richness in the interest of conformity. (Well, there are such people, but I think we can agree they're generally pretty scary.)
This is off topic, but language is but one part of culture. Customs, celebrations, and even measures, are all marks of a culture. In the process of colonization and free trade, we've actively destroyed many languages, customs, celebrations, and measures. I think we typically don't consider the loss of a measurement system to be too catastrophic because of the many conveniences that can be had from uniformity. But the same is true for language as well. I think the real reason we tend to gloss over measures is because they are typically easier to learn than a new language. Anthropologically speaking, however, they are very valuable in exploring a culture.
What is different about the US that it can't do likewise? I honestly find it perplexing. Be honest now� Is it because the French invented it?
Ultimately I think it comes down to the fact that the US is one of the few countries that had a great deal of popular sovereignty determine the outcome of whether or not we should switch to the metric system. Most other countries enacted policy through a quiet parliamentary action that was later carried out by agencies or at a time when most people weren't active in politics. Still others had theirs done at the point of a gun.
In the US there are a lot of veto points in the legislative process, making any significant change hard to do. Americans also tend not to have a great deal of respect for the sciences (scientific literacy is appallingly low) so it makes it a tougher pitch to the everyday person. Then there's also the issue that to most it's a solution for a problem that doesn't exist; why should they care about a measurement system when the one they are using right now is working for them?
You're not stepping out onto the moon this time. Just about every other country on the planet (and there are quite a few of them!) have gone before you, and it worked out just fine. Sure, it takes some time, but not as long as you might like to imagine. Let me come back to my own experience� I was born in the 70s, around the time Australia was just starting to transition to the metric system. The older folk may well have had a difficult time with it, but if so I was blissfully unaware of it. I came to learn what an inch was, since most rulers had inches on one side and mm/cm on the other, and people still, to this day, casually talk about their height in feet and the weight of newborn babies in pounds. (Yes, some old habits die hard.) But these sort of things are the exceptions. The transition to metric was so efficient, I, as a first generation growing up with it, didn't even notice there was a transition happening.
Seriously, you should be looking to Australia and other countries with successful transitions and learning from them, instead of just perpetuating all these fanciful stories of how terrible it's going to be to change.
The issue goes beyond just the prescribed time period to shift, however. As I mentioned above, there are a lot of infrastructure concerns. Not to mention that Australia in the 1970s was 13 million people, or about 24 times smaller than the current US population. The only other countries that were on this scale were India and China when they transitioned, and both had much less infrastructure and an already illiterate population that could be trained from the ground up.
Any realistic transition for the US would take decades.
OneMike
May 7, 11:54 AM
MobileMe is great to me.
Other then when it was FIRST launched and they kept extending the trial for like 4 months. I seldom if all have issues.
Other then when it was FIRST launched and they kept extending the trial for like 4 months. I seldom if all have issues.
Small White Car
Apr 26, 02:21 PM
Once again, the seperating into 'smartphone' and 'tablet' markets makes little sense.
As the capabilities of both devices grow we'll soon find that the only difference between the two is screen size.
Do we consider the 13" Macbook to be in a different market than the 15" Macbook Pro? No, they're both laptops.
And thus, everyone will soon wake up and realize that ALL iOS devices should be compared against ALL Android devices. These 'smartphone only' lists may still make sense in but in 2 or 3 years these kind of measurements will be seen as worthless.
As the capabilities of both devices grow we'll soon find that the only difference between the two is screen size.
Do we consider the 13" Macbook to be in a different market than the 15" Macbook Pro? No, they're both laptops.
And thus, everyone will soon wake up and realize that ALL iOS devices should be compared against ALL Android devices. These 'smartphone only' lists may still make sense in but in 2 or 3 years these kind of measurements will be seen as worthless.
ZbHRP
May 4, 08:08 PM
I'd rather go to a store and get Lion which will probably only take a hour, rather than waiting a days for a 58GB+ download to finish. (No, I'm not buying it online, Apple's courier here is very slow and unreliable when buying small boxed items (OS X, iPods, etc.) at the Apple Store.)
burningbright
May 6, 06:21 AM
I didn't think ARM's stocks would be so volatile.
"ARM tumbles ahead of Intel 'breakthrough'", May 4 2011 (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/electronics/8493555/ARM-tumbles-ahead-of-Intel-breakthrough.html)
"ARM tumbles ahead of Intel 'breakthrough'", May 4 2011 (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/electronics/8493555/ARM-tumbles-ahead-of-Intel-breakthrough.html)
iliketyla
Mar 29, 04:09 PM
Yeah while talking about Japan's protectionism of their agricultural production really adds to the topic of discussion... cause everyone here who clicks on this thread via the main page wants to hear about Japan's agriculture.
Let's "evolve" the thread to encompass kamikaze pilots, kabuki theatre, zen Buddhism, sushi and whale hunting too...:rolleyes:
Well the beauty of this is that you don't make the rules. So if a topic changes and people want to talk about, simply disregard the comments.
;)
Let's "evolve" the thread to encompass kamikaze pilots, kabuki theatre, zen Buddhism, sushi and whale hunting too...:rolleyes:
Well the beauty of this is that you don't make the rules. So if a topic changes and people want to talk about, simply disregard the comments.
;)
Multimedia
Jul 23, 02:31 PM
I aggree that Apple will only use two speeds in the upgraded MBP... but it'll be the slower two speeds. Even tho' Merom is supposed to be more energy efficent than Yonah, Apple will opt for the "cooller" lower speed cpus in the MBP. Similarly, when the "cut-down" Meroms come out (slower and smaller L2 cache), they'll be the CPUs used in the MacBook and Mac mini.
As an aside, TFA states that Merom will be used in the MBP.... which is true, but Apple are also going to use it in an updated iMac too :-)I will be very surprised if Apple doesn't use the 2.16 & 2.33 GHz Meroms in the next MacBook Pros to fully separate them in speed from the 2GHz MacBook. 2.33 Merom should be as cool as the 2.16 Yonah no?
What is TFA? Link?
As an aside, TFA states that Merom will be used in the MBP.... which is true, but Apple are also going to use it in an updated iMac too :-)I will be very surprised if Apple doesn't use the 2.16 & 2.33 GHz Meroms in the next MacBook Pros to fully separate them in speed from the 2GHz MacBook. 2.33 Merom should be as cool as the 2.16 Yonah no?
What is TFA? Link?
gugy
Sep 10, 11:43 PM
Very exciting.
Hopefully on Tuesday we'll see besides the Movie Store:
Widescreen video ipod with large capacity.
Media center
I look at that in two ways.
One would be in form of Airport that we can stream video to my TV on the entertainment room.
The other way an stand alone hardware with huge HD space, outputs to my TV , receiver, PVR, Superdrive, remote control and a way to hook up to the net to access Itunes Movie and Music store for downloads.
I do think the Airport is a more feasible option. But I do like a lot the idea of a stand alone media center. Well, let's wait and see.
Hopefully on Tuesday we'll see besides the Movie Store:
Widescreen video ipod with large capacity.
Media center
I look at that in two ways.
One would be in form of Airport that we can stream video to my TV on the entertainment room.
The other way an stand alone hardware with huge HD space, outputs to my TV , receiver, PVR, Superdrive, remote control and a way to hook up to the net to access Itunes Movie and Music store for downloads.
I do think the Airport is a more feasible option. But I do like a lot the idea of a stand alone media center. Well, let's wait and see.
ergle2
Sep 15, 09:16 PM
I don't really care about the C2D processor, since most reviews are it is a bland chip without the Santa Rosa chip set. Better, sure enough, but not enough to care about.
Santa Rosa isn't a chipset, it's the name of the platform.
It consists of Merom (eventually Penryn?), Crestline (i965 express chipset) and Kedron (802.11n).
Santa Rosa won't affect performance a great deal.
The faster FSB will make a difference of maybe 3-5%. Maybe a little more in bandwidth-sensitive applications (say, some forms of decompression).
Less than than the difference between Yonah and Merom.
The other big differences are the new graphics core -- which the MBP won't use, the 802.11n - for which the spec hasn't yet been ratified, and is something easily added by changing/adding a wifi card, and the Robson flash caching technology, which is probably the biggest difference.
Note that Crestline is currently specced at consuming ~50% more power than the i945 chipset in Napa. Robson, however, should reduce some of that.
It's quite ironic that after years of Powerbooks getting new G4's with tiny clockspeed boosts, something like Merom is considered "bland"(?)
Santa Rosa isn't a chipset, it's the name of the platform.
It consists of Merom (eventually Penryn?), Crestline (i965 express chipset) and Kedron (802.11n).
Santa Rosa won't affect performance a great deal.
The faster FSB will make a difference of maybe 3-5%. Maybe a little more in bandwidth-sensitive applications (say, some forms of decompression).
Less than than the difference between Yonah and Merom.
The other big differences are the new graphics core -- which the MBP won't use, the 802.11n - for which the spec hasn't yet been ratified, and is something easily added by changing/adding a wifi card, and the Robson flash caching technology, which is probably the biggest difference.
Note that Crestline is currently specced at consuming ~50% more power than the i945 chipset in Napa. Robson, however, should reduce some of that.
It's quite ironic that after years of Powerbooks getting new G4's with tiny clockspeed boosts, something like Merom is considered "bland"(?)
pmz
Mar 28, 11:16 AM
Capacity bump now, full update September(ish)?
Now in what way would that possibly make sense? Are you being serious or just plucking out of thin air?
Now in what way would that possibly make sense? Are you being serious or just plucking out of thin air?
mi5moav
Sep 11, 09:11 AM
Can't wait, especially for photokina. Hopefully, that new Apple VideoCamera will make it's appearance. I need one so badly. My brother is having a kid and I need something youtube. Can't wait Can't wait.
wclyffe
Nov 18, 04:28 PM
yes very true, I think i might stick with BLT as well, hard to beat 85 dollars...lol, especially since i just learned that the new Magellan Car Kit will cost 129.99 :eek: and here we all were complaining about tomtom's pricing...lol. I will say, just as i have stated before though, that it is still enticing to go to my local apple store and pick up a unit. I guess it all depends on if I go on some spur of the moment trip..lol
Yeah, I hear you. I hate waiting for orders to ship...I guess we get so use to items being in stock, and on their way the next day.
Thought I'd post the Magellan car kit info for all to see:
Magellan car kit detailed at FCC filing
That was fast. We just learned Magellan was going to offer a car kit for the iPhone and it has already hit the FCC. GPSTracklog.com has a detailed drawing of the new device, and it looks to be quite complete. Magellan has said the kit will be on sale before the end of the year, and even give the iPod touch full nav capabilities.
The car kit is supposed to allow any iPhone GPS app to work with it, so you're not limited to the Magellan app. It works in portrait or landscape mode, and has a speaker for hearing directions and also link to your iPhone for Bluetooth based calls.
The Magellan Roadmate app itself [iTunes link] has a boatload of good features, and we're anxious to get our hands on the app for a full test. Holiday travelers will have a lot of good choices for navigating to your destinations. Remember when we thought the plain old Google Maps app was cool?
Yeah, I hear you. I hate waiting for orders to ship...I guess we get so use to items being in stock, and on their way the next day.
Thought I'd post the Magellan car kit info for all to see:
Magellan car kit detailed at FCC filing
That was fast. We just learned Magellan was going to offer a car kit for the iPhone and it has already hit the FCC. GPSTracklog.com has a detailed drawing of the new device, and it looks to be quite complete. Magellan has said the kit will be on sale before the end of the year, and even give the iPod touch full nav capabilities.
The car kit is supposed to allow any iPhone GPS app to work with it, so you're not limited to the Magellan app. It works in portrait or landscape mode, and has a speaker for hearing directions and also link to your iPhone for Bluetooth based calls.
The Magellan Roadmate app itself [iTunes link] has a boatload of good features, and we're anxious to get our hands on the app for a full test. Holiday travelers will have a lot of good choices for navigating to your destinations. Remember when we thought the plain old Google Maps app was cool?
solaris7
Apr 23, 04:19 PM
My eyes! My EYES!!!
mikejfrd
Mar 27, 10:09 AM
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8F190 Safari/6533.18.5)
Well my source tells me that whenever the next generation iPhone comes out ATT will have exclusive rights to it for a few months before verizon. How/why I have no idea, I'm just relaying info.
Well my source tells me that whenever the next generation iPhone comes out ATT will have exclusive rights to it for a few months before verizon. How/why I have no idea, I'm just relaying info.
tribalogical
May 6, 01:27 AM
My first reaction to the headline was, "Oh no, not again..." (having already weathered both the OS9 -> OSX and PowerPC -> Intel x86 transitions)...
But after that initial groan, a few other (more positive?) considerations came to mind.
First, Apple really did do a great job of transitioning from PPC to Ix86... it was far less painful than it could have been. Not perfect, but incredibly well-managed.
Now, OSX Lion is coming, and it appears to contain the beginnings of a convergence and consolidation between iOS and OSX. If we try to imagine where those OS's will be, say, 3 years out (and the hardware as well), by THAT time, it may be as simple as flipping a switch and hey-presto, you're on an ARM device without missing a beat...
I say this because, as devices like iPad evolve over the next few years, the applications written for them will also, and by the time 'higher end devices' like desktops and laptops are lining up for a platform change, those "mobile" app versions will already be 'full featured', and already written for ARM-based devices (I'll use the current Garageband pair - with cross-compatible OSX/iOS versions - as a very early-market example of that future). So, the painful prospect of rewriting/recompiling all your code won't be nearly as bad as it was for the OS9->X transition.
Another consideration is that tomorrow's mobile devices will be far more powerful than even today's desktop/laptops are. It's harder to imagine the future of the desktop/laptop as we know them today.
In fact, now would probably be a good time to remember that what Jobs is creating here isn't just "magical devices"... he's embarked on defining the "Post PC Era"...
It'll be interesting to see where all this leads, but my take on it is that it might not even feel much like a "platform switch" by the time we arrive there...
But after that initial groan, a few other (more positive?) considerations came to mind.
First, Apple really did do a great job of transitioning from PPC to Ix86... it was far less painful than it could have been. Not perfect, but incredibly well-managed.
Now, OSX Lion is coming, and it appears to contain the beginnings of a convergence and consolidation between iOS and OSX. If we try to imagine where those OS's will be, say, 3 years out (and the hardware as well), by THAT time, it may be as simple as flipping a switch and hey-presto, you're on an ARM device without missing a beat...
I say this because, as devices like iPad evolve over the next few years, the applications written for them will also, and by the time 'higher end devices' like desktops and laptops are lining up for a platform change, those "mobile" app versions will already be 'full featured', and already written for ARM-based devices (I'll use the current Garageband pair - with cross-compatible OSX/iOS versions - as a very early-market example of that future). So, the painful prospect of rewriting/recompiling all your code won't be nearly as bad as it was for the OS9->X transition.
Another consideration is that tomorrow's mobile devices will be far more powerful than even today's desktop/laptops are. It's harder to imagine the future of the desktop/laptop as we know them today.
In fact, now would probably be a good time to remember that what Jobs is creating here isn't just "magical devices"... he's embarked on defining the "Post PC Era"...
It'll be interesting to see where all this leads, but my take on it is that it might not even feel much like a "platform switch" by the time we arrive there...