It's shoot for the moon daze, people! Following up on Al Gore's challenge to convert all electricity production to wind, solar and recumbent bike power in the next 10 years, two other probably even less likely to be accomplished challenges were raised.
First, TechCrunch wants users to build them a dead-simple web tablet for $200. There's that can-get-other-people-to-do-it spirit that made this country great! Make sure you get a tetanus shot before taking those test models for a spin! Some of those edges might be sharp.
Now one of the founders of Ubuntu maker Canonical, Mark Shuttleworth, says he wants the operating system that's fun to say to "blow right past Apple" in terms of an artful desktop experience. Right. Look, the Macalope has some really nice things to say about Linux and Tux himself, who he frequently plays against in the Mythical Creatures Intramural Softball League. But artful experiences are rarely, if ever, created by committee. Also, it's not just the presentation layer that separates Ubuntu from OS X. It's also this. It's not enough to look good, it has to just work, too.
Well, you know, MobileMe notwithstanding.
Cough.
According to InformationWeek, Microsoft has finally come clean and admitted its Vista mistakes (tip o' the antlers to Daring Fireball).
But what's an admission of guilt without spreading some blame around?
Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is now acknowledging it screwed up with its initial launch of Windows Vista, and is ready to try again.
Oh. OK. So, wait, Windows will be five years late instead of four now? Huh? How's this going to work exactly? Has it used its vast resources to somehow turn time back?
"We broke a lot of things."
We broke your applications. We broke your hardware. We broke your collectible figurines. We broke your Aunt Elma's hip...
"We know that, and we know it caused you a lot of pain."
Particularly Aunt Elma.
"It got customers thinking, hey, is Windows Vista a generation we want to get invested in?"
Yes. They're thinking that. A year and a half after Vista's launch. That's awkward, isn't it?
If only there were some other operating system...
So Brad Brooks, Microsoft's VP of Windows Vista consumer marketing, fessed up publicly this week.
Wow, bummer detail you pulled there, Brad.
"Say, Brad, this thing you're going to do at our Partner Conference next week... are you familiar with the Japanese tradition of seppuku? Here's an informative pamphlet."
Speaking at a keynote address at Microsoft's annual Worldwide Partner Conference, Brooks signified that Microsoft was ready to admit mistakes and reposition itself to tell a better story about Windows Vista...
Yes! Because it's all about the "story" about Vista. Well, a minute ago it was about breaking things. But sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make a story omelette. Or something.
"You thought the sleeping giant was still sleeping, well we woke it up and it's time to take our message forward," Brooks said.
We didn't think it was so much "sleeping" as we thought it was "lumbering". Lumbering drunkenly down the hall smashing things and blaming everyone else when it woke up in a pile of its own filth.
In the coming weeks and months, Microsoft will launch a huge advertising campaign that's been reported to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Finally! Yes, please, Microsoft, make the pain go away through the power of marketing!
"We've got a pretty noisy competitor out there," Brooks said of Apple whose "I'm a Mac... and I'm a PC," commercials criticize Windows Vista. ... "We're going to start countering it. They tell us it's the iWay or the highway. We think that's a sad message."
"iWay or the highway"? Microsoft must buy its tone-deafness in bulk from Costco or something. "I know our slogans are meaningless and our product names are vapid, but we got a great deal on them!"
Overall, the message Microsoft hopes to impart is that Windows Vista is ready, and that Microsoft will no longer take a back seat while word of mouth and Apple drive negative messaging about the company and Windows.
Look, the Macalope has actually been somewhat sympathetic to Vista. It's got a good security model -- certainly better than Leopard's as poor Brad rightly notes -- and a decent enough user experience. And he knows the audience was Microsoft partners who are looking for any kind of help they can get to mask the smell of Vista flop sweat.
But Microsoft made its bed by over-promising for six years and then delivering an OS that forced a lot of uncomfortable decisions. Marketing isn't going to clean this mess up. The horny one really isn't sure what is, frankly, but the "Get a Mac" ads aren't responsible for businesses choosing to stick with XP. Microsoft is.
The InformationWeek piece portrays this as an "about time" move, but this is more "my dog ate it" territory.
UPDATE: some delightfully shrill piling on can be found here and here.
David Card on Microsoft's plans for Windows 7.
So, apparently, the 2009-2010 version of Windows will still not have the next-gen file system I was writing about more than 10 years ago -- when "Cairo" was the lead codename -- let alone a microkernel with modules for OS "personalities" and compatibility.
You're gonna fend off Google and cloud computing with a touch screen?? Good luck. I do hope there's a skunkworks Plan B in the labs. No wonder buying Yahoo "isn't strategic."
Also amusing is the Microsoft reaction to Tiger's search capabilities.
Rik Myslewski takes a look back at Apple's experience with cloning in the mid-1990s. It's an important lesson as some are once again calling for the company to license OS X for non-Apple hardware. Either these people weren't around in the mid-1990s or they've suffered some severe head trauma or they really just want Apple to do something monstrously stupid.
So often when deconstructing a work of silly punditry, the Macalope will log on later to see that there is a response, a comeback, a retort.
And he will sigh.
Because they're always really lame.
Can't the brown and furry one just let the air out of a piece without having to spend an entire week on it?
Well, such was his initial reaction upon finding that ZDNet's Jason Perlow had posted a response to his piece from Monday. But to his delight, he found this response was different. This was saucy, with a piquant flavor and none of the usual bitter aftertaste so many of the Macalope's other sparring partners have left him.
The Macalope's frown? Turned upside down.
In response to the pointy one's point that the legs of the Mac cloning biz might be short and stumpy, Perlow replies:
What, amputees aren't entitled to have fun? You got a problem with veterans who had half their limbs blown off in the OS wars?
See what he did there? He riffed on the Macalope's bit. It's almost unheard of. A tip o' the antlers to you, sir!
But I guess Macalope likes to get his point across using inflammatory and tasteless metaphors.
Inflammatory, yes, but as a gourmand such as yourself should know, taste is subjective.
I believe the good Macalope is again confusing harmless PC hobbyists doing things in the privacy of their own homes with the activities of a struggling upstart computer manufacturer, whose business practices are under very close examination. Not once have I advocated people actually go out and buy systems from companies like Psystar. Yet.
Fair enough. Whatever freaky hermaphroditic PC action people are into at home is their own business.
But I have said, continuously, that Apple could significantly expand its market share by allowing Mac OS X to run legally on other hardware platforms, particularly to leverage and entice the efforts of the Open Source community working on Linux and similar systems.
The horny one would argue with you about how significantly cloning would expand market share. But, more importantly, market share is not the most important metric. If it comes at the cost of profit, it's not much of a prize. As a matter of fact, it's the kind of "prize" that can put you out of business. Remember, we have precedent.
The Macalope was there, Jason, and maybe he remembers it a little differently than you. In his recollection, it went down like this:
- Technology pundits say Apple must license or die.
- Apple licenses and has its lunch eaten.
- Steve Jobs returns, kills licensing and returns the company to profitability.
OK, there are some details left out, but that's the Reader's Digest version and the Macalope's seen nothing other than your unsupported assertions to the contrary that would belie this historical truism.
But, who knows? Maybe you're right. Clearly Apple's doing something wrong, huh?
Not everyone thinks the Apple industrial design ethos fits their ideal of cool or sexy, mister smart antlers.
The Macalope doesn't argue that you and many others want more choice -- everyone loves choice -- but our fundamental disagreement is over whether it's in Apple's interests.
Oh, and "mister smart antlers"? Awesome.
Don't you know anything about Godwin's Law?
That was actually the Macalope's point -- that you were flirting with it.
Incidentally, the most hysterical example evah of Godwin's Law was executed by a former ZDNet blogger you might have heard of.
Well, Jason, the Macalope can't say it hasn't been fun because it has. He looks forward to our next bout.
Ah, spring! When a gentleman's fancy turns to Mac cloning! Like ZDNet's Jason Perlow.
... I have to think that this whole idea of commercially produced Mac Clones has legs...
Ah, so Perlow's a leg man. Well, Jason, the Macalope's not sure what you're into but, just so you know, these particular legs are likely to be of the short, stumpy variety.
But despite all the lusting, is this relationship meant to be? Sure, cloners were able to legally have their way with Windows, but OS X ain't that kind of girl. She's gonna put up a fight.
There is the obvious difference here that Apple owns Mac OS X and the rights to the hardware platform it runs on, whereas IBM had a non-exclusive license from Microsoft which prevented a loophole from being closed, but to use the hackneyed phrase -- when there is a will, there is a way.
There are certainly going to be more attempts to create unlicensed Mac clones. The problem is, who wants to buy a computer running an unsupported operating system from a company that has the life expectancy of a fruit fly?
I have always said that it made absolutely no sense that Apple backed off from the prospect of cloned systems.
And the Macalope has always said that the water fountains at ZDNet must be served with lead pipes.
How easy is it? Well, along with legal copies of Mac OS X and a special EFI firmware emulator for PC BIOS-based equipment and instructions how to put it all together it doesn't really require any more effort than what it would have typically taken a PC homebrewer to assemble their own DOS or Windows-based white box 10 or 15 years ago.
Hmm. The Macalope likes your American ingenuity, Jason, but he's not hearing the words that brings this sleazy scenario to its tacky nadir: steampunk casemod. Think about it.
If you want a clone Mac or a "Hackintosh" that badly, you can have one, for just a small amount of effort and a very modest cash investment in a relatively generic PC motherboard, processor, RAM, video card and case with power supply assembled from an ever-growing list of compatible parts.
Rob Griffiths might disagree with the "small amount of effort" part. Here's what he went through:
After all of the parts arrived at my home, it took a few hours to build the machine. ... But building the hardware is actually the easy part of the process.
...
Next, I installed Vista on the PC, just to be sure everything worked. From there, it then took many more hours to get OS X working right--while the process is relatively straightforward, there are a lot of steps involved, and BIOS settings to tweak. If you want to run Windows and OS X on the same drive, there are more hoops to jump through to get it all working. But after many hours of reading, assembling, disassembling, screaming, installing, uninstalling, reinstalling, saying bad words, pestering friends, and generally not having very much fun, I was done: my machine was up and running, and capable of booting into either Windows Vista or Mac OS X 10.5.2.
Jason, the Macalope decrees your pimp name to be "Sugar-Coatin' Perlow". But over at ZDNet, hope springs eternal:
In all likelihood, you probably can run it on the PC you have now...
That's true! But, in the Macalope's case, that's because the PC he has now is a Mac. You see, time being money, this colossal exercise is only economically worthwhile if your only opportunity cost is the hours you'll lose from your job as a fry chef down at the DQ.
Oh, you'll need to be your own support person, and it will probably be more than a little bit messy, but if you are determined to "screw the man" so to speak, than a private citizen can effectively do whatever the heck they want without any interference at all from the Evil Fruit.
Who burned the Reichstag? Why, Steve Jobs burned the Reichstag, of course. Jason's just having a little fun, but when did the computer company with the 7% market share become the Great Satan?
Don't get me wrong, Ubuntu Hardy Heron is nice and all, but a Mac OS X I could easily and legally install on any random $500-$700 Dell or Taiwanese special from Costco or Wal-Mart?
OK, the Macalope may be an ungulate, but he still doesn't like it when other people make him throw up in his own mouth.
It's baffling how someone could get through an entire article and neglect to address one simple question: what's in it for Apple?
Attracting homebrew Linux users? No offense, Jason, but that's not exactly the gold ring of desktop computer market share.
This is not business analysis. This is technology fantasy porn. And Apple's just not that into you.
All things being equal, the brown and furry one would much rather steal market share from Windows than Linux. The Macalope has a lot of respect for the neck-bearded Linux gnomes who solder and compile long into the night. Sure, they're cheap, but they live by a noble, if smelly and hirsute, code. And the Macalope loves the idea of three viable desktop alternatives really competing against each other.
In any event, licensed Mac cloning is simply not going to happen. The experience from the mid '90s is that licensees don't increase sales, they rob sales from Apple. And the amount of money to be made on licensing is never going to be greater than the sales of Apple hardware lost. That leaves unlicensed cloning which will never be really mainstreamed because of the obvious legal, technical and, well, moral implications.
Sadly, this won't stop some fevered imaginations from going on and on about how very, very hot it gets them.
Ew, indeed.
Unless you're too busy doing the rickrolling that's so popular with the kids these days, you probably saw that a MacBook Air got hacked at CanSecWest last week.
In a repeat of last year's "PWN 2 Own" contest, organizers this time offered three different laptops running three different operating systems.
David Maynor says:
I hope this puts to rest the myth that OSX is more secure but I am sure the zealots will have a million reasons why this is a fixed or rigged contest.
Well, the Macalope for one has already acceded to his contention that Vista is more secure based on the technical merits, if not the practical ones. So the brown and furry one's not really sure what he's on about. But he's sure David will find a Slashdot comment somewhere that will validate his Artie MacStrawmanism.
There's certainly no denying that, as ZDNet's Larry Dignan says (no "Mac zealot" he), the MacBook Air was certainly the more coveted target:
[The Fujitsu running Vista and the Sony Vaio running Ubuntu] are still standing, but that may be because there's more hacker glory in taking down the MacBook Air.
Plus, you hack it, you keep it. So, sure, everyone's trying to hack the Air. (The Vista laptop was later hacked, but only after the rules were relaxed.)
But putting it all down to the Air metaphorically having a big red X painted on it is ultimately just sour grapes -- it got compromised, and that's a frowny face in the Apple column.
So the Macalope will reiterate his call -- again! -- to Apple to get more serious on security.
There are several reasons these security "professionals" are spending their waking and non-waking hours targeting Macs.
First, they're lashing out at what they think is a "smug attitude" by Apple on security. Frankly, Apple's corporate position on security is so lame that the only thing these people are basing this on is the "Get a Mac" ads. Yes, really. These people have the emotional maturity of a cup of fruit salad. That's all territory we've covered already.
Second, thanks to the resurgence of Apple, most of them have only just discovered the Mac. It's virgin territory for them and, like when Columbus "discovered" the New World, their first inclinations is to immediately start shooting the natives and giving them all kinds of horrid diseases.
Third, Apple simply has not implemented a comprehensive security policy (see: Leopard firewall, Back To My Mac defaults). It may very well be that it's easier to exploit certain vectors on the Mac. The Macalope's not qualified to make that call.
Finally -- and this is the issue that would the easiest for Apple to solve -- the members of the hacker community just don't know anyone at Apple. They know people at Microsoft because the company shmoozes the hell out of them.
If it wanted to, Apple could probably make serious inroads to this community and at least reduce its PR problem by hiring someone they know. Now, many of these people are not exactly the corporate citizen type. They often dress and smell funny and, if you've been paying attention, have the emotional maturity of a cup of fruit salad. So maybe Apple would want to poach someone from Microsoft or look to those who write about security -- your Rich Mogulls, your Ryan Naraines -- and tap someone like that. Sure, journalists still dress funny, but they fare slightly better on the olfactory and fruit salad scales.
See, the easiest thing in the world to do is to get someone who will take these people golfing and tell them "Dude, we are totally going to do that. Next release. I swear."
"Now watch this drive."
The company could defuse a large part of this without changing a line of code because it's less about the relative merits of the various platforms -- which are valid concerns -- than it is about emotion (see: salad, fruit).
And, really, this is exactly the kind of game that Apple has gotten wrong for 30 years. Shmoozing is not exactly the company's forté (just ask any Apple developer how the lunches are at WWDC).
The Macalope certainly wants to see Apple come up with a comprehensive strategy for implementing sound security in its software, he's just saying that there's more than one aspect to this issue. One requires coding, the other requires grease.
Of course silly Mac users are going to flog a study that shows that they, themselves, are five times more likely to say they're "very satisfied" with their operating system than Vista users.
Now, any idiot can see the problem with surveying people who've already admitted to using the Mac.
They're Mac users! They've already drank the Kool Aid! They drank it all up! And possibly drank yours!
Their responses simply can't be trusted because they've already fallen victim to Steve Jobs' voodoo powers.
Hel-loooo?!
Ha-ha! Silly Mac users!
The Macalope's devastatingly handsome and wickedly quick-witted readers know that the horny one has repeatedly asked Apple to take security more seriously. So, he has sympathy to arguments from even David Maynor that Apple is benefiting not from great technology so much as it is from being a smaller target.
But this BusinessWeek piece by Roger Kay is just 10 tons of stupid.
And good lord, just look at Kay's web site! The Macalope knows it's a cliché, but 1996 really did call and it really does want its web template back. No, seriously, the Macalope just got off the phone with it. Not to judge form over substance (Kay fails at both), but would you trust the opinion of someone with a site like that?
No, you would not. And you'd be right. What's up with BusinessWeek?
As hackers pillaged Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows operating system, Apple (AAPL) stressed that its computer platform was relatively virus-free, most notably in that snarky ad campaign, "I'm a PC. I'm a Mac." There was Windows, groaning under the weight of its security apparatus, like some knight of yesteryear packed in heavy armor who, once he fell off his horse, couldn't get up again. And on the other side, there was Apple strutting about, smacking its gloves together and posing for the crowd.
The Macalope doesn't remember that ad. Probably because it doesn't exist. In the "Boxer" ad, the boxer was the PC, not the Mac.
People like Kay seem to forget that these are ads. They're not white papers. They're supposed to be funny and directionally correct.
But now Apple is becoming a victim of its own success...
"Victim"? It is? Since when? Did somebody lose some data? Did anybody lose any data? Does anybody know what the hell Kay is talking about?
Apple sold nearly 7.8 million Mac desktop and laptop computers in 2007. That's a 37% gain over the number sold in 2006 and well more than double the 2001 volume. It's little surprise then that reports of Mac viruses have been rising steadily.
?
???
???!!!!???!?!?!???!!?!??!!
Hackers went to town on the iPhone from day one, opening it for service with nondesignated wireless providers and dropping applications onto it at will.
Could someone please sit down the slower students in the class and explain to them that "hackers" who seek to alter a device's software for the purpose of giving it more functionality are not the same as "hackers" who try to find illicit ways to compromise your data for personal gain.
Kay apparently believes there's a rash of people breaking into the homes of Apple customers, installing applications on their iPhones or enabling them to be used with other carriers and then slipping away into the night.
As if there weren't already enough incentive to hack the iPhone, the 30% revenue "share" Apple will require for every application sold through the iTunes Store should do the trick.
Actually, the 30% is the one thing developers (as opposed to jackasses like Kay who have no actual skin in the game but love to project their weird revenge fantasies onto Apple) aren't complaining about. So, wrong again.
Everyone is rooting for the hackers to win.
If by "everyone" you mean some subset of the subset of iPhone owners who have hacked their phones. And with the coming of the App Store, that number's going to drop.
Apple, welcome to Microsoft's world! This is an environment in which you have to support thousands of developers of varying quality, and all sorts of apps, well made or not.
Again, eh, not so much. Which actually brings up the part of the plan people are complaining about. Apple can pick and choose which applications/developers it wants to work with.
See, Rog, you can't complain that the system is closed and then say Apple's screwed because it's open. It's one or the other.
The elegant simplicity of your platform just makes hacking easier.
Well, no again. It's exploits that make hacking easier. Wait, are we talking about hacking or hacking now? It probably doesn't matter as that doesn't make any sense either way.
Daedalus warned Icarus not to fly too high, for the wax holding the feathers on the wings they were using to escape their island prison would melt in the sun.
This is a particularly appropriate parable since, you know, it's just flat-out nonsense (it actually gets colder the higher you fly).
The funny part of that story you rarely hear, though, is that Daedalus made a fake cow for the queen so that she could copulate with a bull and make the Minotaur. The Macalope love to tell that at parties because it really pisses off the Minotaur who will inevitably yell "My mother is a saint!" and storm out of the room.
Anyway, that's got nothing to do with Apple and hackers.
Everyone makes mistakes.
Well, you've certainly proven that particular axiom, Roger.
But society loves to repay hubris with derisive laughter.
Indeed.
Ha.
Ha.
Ha.
