You know, it's funny how things change so much at times. There was a time when the power of Apple was in providing an alternative. They have never been first to market, but so what, they have something different to offer! Or at least, they did, and they made a good deal of fuss about how different it was. Then something happened.
First, it was the mobile music player market. It was a minor market, hardly anyone was there, just a few mp3 players and CD players, which had their places, but they weren't tremendously popular. Then Apple jumped in to provide an alternative, and everything went crazy. Suddenly they became the dominant player, because it hadn't been developed. The iPod was revolutionary, not because it was the first, but because it penetrated.
Next was the smartphone market. It was a nominal market, split primarily between Blackberry and Palm Pilot at the time, with some interest from Nokia and Windows Mobile. But it was still a tiny, developing market until Apple came along with the iPhone. They didn't dominate it the way they dominated the mobile music player market, but they were the ones who really put the market on the map. Now they have competition from Android, while Blackberry struggles to stay in the marketplace.
Finally, there is the tablet market. Until Apple's iPad and the various Android tablets, there were a couple of tablets on the market, but the market never stuck until Apple released the iPad. Now they have dominated the market, although Android is competing with them, the iPad is the dominant player. So in all of their new ventures in the past decade, they have not been in the position of alternative.
Why is it that they never succeeded in laptops and desktops as they did in mobile, portable devices? Why have they not managed to dominate the market? They have the power to do it, when it comes to those devices, whether they are the biggest player or not. They aren't just a minor alternative, yet they let their laptops slide.
The reason, in the end, is simple. They failed to appeal to businesses at the beginning, and so businesses ignored them. Developers found a different place to take their apps, and we are still struggling to recover from that. Apps are stuck in Windows, and only just starting to expand beyond that. As the software world expands, the dominance of Windows on traditional computers will subside, and alternatives will begin to be considered.
Monday 29 October 2012
A Need For Openness
Life is an interesting challenge. So much of what we honour and desire is for freedom. We want understanding, knowledge, improvement, and freedom. We want utopia, but how far are we really willing to go in order to get it? That is an important question. But that is what we, as a whole, really seem to want.
Individuals, on the other hand, are different. They want power, and money, and they want to be right. Of course, these goals in many ways oppose the goals described in the previous paragraph. Power and money for individuals, while not incompatible with understanding, knowledge, improvement, and freedom, does not work towards it above all else. People wanting to be right, on the other hand, tends to be directly in opposition to those ideals.
Power and money are the main results of patents, for example. In theory, patents were designed to protect innovators by giving them a chance to monetize their inventions before everyone started using the technique, but in the modern landscape, many claim that it actually prevents others from building on past success. In other words, it stifles improvement, and represses knowledge and understanding. I'm not going to argue either side of this today, although I will likely cover it in a future blog post.
Life should be based on principles of openness, however. There are benefits to closed systems, primarily economical, but as a whole, that isn't what we want. This is particularly so in the world of science. Research, comparison, learning, and so on is always going to be improved the most by co-operation. That is the key tenet of an open society. Co-operation. Working together so that we can build on our earlier mistakes, and our earlier successes.
That is a big problem with the world today. All scientific endeavours require co-operation, but there is no system in place to ensure co-operation happens, or even to make it possible. Instead, people want to use it as a means to make even more money, and so scientists are forced to work in their own little bubbles, slowed down in their effort to make our lives better. Life would be better in an Open society.
Individuals, on the other hand, are different. They want power, and money, and they want to be right. Of course, these goals in many ways oppose the goals described in the previous paragraph. Power and money for individuals, while not incompatible with understanding, knowledge, improvement, and freedom, does not work towards it above all else. People wanting to be right, on the other hand, tends to be directly in opposition to those ideals.
Power and money are the main results of patents, for example. In theory, patents were designed to protect innovators by giving them a chance to monetize their inventions before everyone started using the technique, but in the modern landscape, many claim that it actually prevents others from building on past success. In other words, it stifles improvement, and represses knowledge and understanding. I'm not going to argue either side of this today, although I will likely cover it in a future blog post.
Life should be based on principles of openness, however. There are benefits to closed systems, primarily economical, but as a whole, that isn't what we want. This is particularly so in the world of science. Research, comparison, learning, and so on is always going to be improved the most by co-operation. That is the key tenet of an open society. Co-operation. Working together so that we can build on our earlier mistakes, and our earlier successes.
That is a big problem with the world today. All scientific endeavours require co-operation, but there is no system in place to ensure co-operation happens, or even to make it possible. Instead, people want to use it as a means to make even more money, and so scientists are forced to work in their own little bubbles, slowed down in their effort to make our lives better. Life would be better in an Open society.
Monday 15 October 2012
Windows Update and Uncommunication
Sorry to anyone who was hoping for a useful post, this is more of a rant than anything else.
The implementation of Windows Update is something that I have long considered to be a thorn in the side of anyone who tries to use Windows. Back in the days of Windows XP, for example, the most typical problem would be that it wouldn't tell you that there were updates available, unless you went to the Windows Update. Otherwise, it would just forcibly install them the next time you shut down your computer. There was no way to force a refresh or check or anything. It would just install them without approval, even if you had set it to notify you and let you choose.
Then there is the problem that continues to plague Windows users, that of automatic restart. Really, the fact that Windows allows automatic restart without authorization of the user is rather irritating, but necessary due to the fact that restarts are required so frequently. However, the implementation of Windows Update is that you can't tell it to wait until you manually restart the computer. That would be ideal, but instead, it forces the restart, unless you manually postpone it. The amount of work that has been lost because of this is incalculable. Of course, you can turn it off, if you are willing to hack the registry, or if you know where to find the Group Policy setting. (Group Policy settings are available only in Professional, Ultimate, or Enterprise versions of Windows 7.)
Also, Microsoft products that they think everyone should have and be using are constantly being pushed to users, unless they take active steps to prevent that from happening. Saying ignore update to install software only ignores the current update. Next time they update it, it will be offered for installation once again. There is no option to ignore software, short of hacking your registry. You can't simply deny the new version of Internet Explorer, for example.
Of course, by all accounts, in Windows 8 it looks like it is being made to work more like Linux than it currently is. It likely will still have the restart issues, but Windows has always required an inordinate number of restarts. However, rumour has it that it will be able to install and update all software that is available for your computer, or at least all of the software that was distributed using Windows Update, or Windows Store. On the other hand, there will be far more reason to distribute through means other than the Windows Store, as compared to Linux.
Windows Update, however, has proved to be buggy, pushy, inconsistent, and limited. Someday, I suppose, it might be effective and efficient. It is improving, after all. They did fix it so that you could go to an application and force a refresh since Windows Vista.
The implementation of Windows Update is something that I have long considered to be a thorn in the side of anyone who tries to use Windows. Back in the days of Windows XP, for example, the most typical problem would be that it wouldn't tell you that there were updates available, unless you went to the Windows Update. Otherwise, it would just forcibly install them the next time you shut down your computer. There was no way to force a refresh or check or anything. It would just install them without approval, even if you had set it to notify you and let you choose.
Then there is the problem that continues to plague Windows users, that of automatic restart. Really, the fact that Windows allows automatic restart without authorization of the user is rather irritating, but necessary due to the fact that restarts are required so frequently. However, the implementation of Windows Update is that you can't tell it to wait until you manually restart the computer. That would be ideal, but instead, it forces the restart, unless you manually postpone it. The amount of work that has been lost because of this is incalculable. Of course, you can turn it off, if you are willing to hack the registry, or if you know where to find the Group Policy setting. (Group Policy settings are available only in Professional, Ultimate, or Enterprise versions of Windows 7.)
Also, Microsoft products that they think everyone should have and be using are constantly being pushed to users, unless they take active steps to prevent that from happening. Saying ignore update to install software only ignores the current update. Next time they update it, it will be offered for installation once again. There is no option to ignore software, short of hacking your registry. You can't simply deny the new version of Internet Explorer, for example.
Of course, by all accounts, in Windows 8 it looks like it is being made to work more like Linux than it currently is. It likely will still have the restart issues, but Windows has always required an inordinate number of restarts. However, rumour has it that it will be able to install and update all software that is available for your computer, or at least all of the software that was distributed using Windows Update, or Windows Store. On the other hand, there will be far more reason to distribute through means other than the Windows Store, as compared to Linux.
Windows Update, however, has proved to be buggy, pushy, inconsistent, and limited. Someday, I suppose, it might be effective and efficient. It is improving, after all. They did fix it so that you could go to an application and force a refresh since Windows Vista.
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