Looking at Apple's shortcomings, making 2004 better
updated 04:30 am EST, Tue January 6, 2004
Making Apple better
BusinessWeek's also notes quality issues with Apple's recent products, including both hardware and software issues.
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01/06, 11:43am |
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woo hoo
iTunes DRM cracked wide open for GNU/Linux. Seriously.
By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco
Posted: 05/01/2004 at 20:25 GMT
Get The Reg wherever you are, with The Mobile Register
Exclusive Norwegian programmer Jon Lech Johansen, who broke the DVD encryption scheme, has opened iTunes locked music a tad further, by allowing people to play songs they've purchased on iTunes Music Store on their GNU/Linux computers.
"We're about to find out what Apple really thinks about Fair Use," Johansen told The Register via email.
Johansen cracked iTunes DRM scheme in November by releasing code for a small Windows program that dumps the stream to disk in raw AAC format. This raw format required some trivial additions to convert it to an MP4 file that could be played on any capable computer.
But in the best Apple ease-of-use tradition, Johansen has now made this completely seamless, integrating it with the VideoLAN streaming free software project.
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01/06, 11:48am |
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Quality Control
...thats a joke, going downhill fast...hang on!
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01/07, 12:51am |
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Mac OS
I've become quite disillusioned with Apple's Mac OS strategy. It seems to me that Apple keeps cutting it's already small pie (3% ?) into minute slices. Let's start with the classic Mac OS users -- OS 9 and older. Apple abandoned them and they still represent at least 60% of the Mac's installed base. Shouldn't Apple try harder to SWITCH them?
Then there's the Mac OSX saga. It seems that Apple has already abandoned 10.0 and 10.1 and most of 10.2. Folks shouldn't use 10.3.0 if they value data, and probably not 10.3.1 due to lingering bugs. Let's see, 10.3.2 is sluggish but any UNIX geek should be able to speed things up.
I think the real irony was Apple's recent release of QuickTime 6.5 -- just one example. On the Windows platform, the requirements for installing QT 6.5 are for Win98 or higher. Let's see, doesn't that mean most any Windows PC purchased between 1998 and 2004 can run Apple's QT 6.5. On the Mac side, if your computer is more than 6 months old -- and not constantly upgraded -- you're out of luck.
There's a small glimmer of hope. This morning, Apple announced a refreshed iLife series compatible with both Jaguar (10.2.6 min/10.2.8 rec) and Panther.
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Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jul 2001
Generally Positive...
Both articles have strong points and vaild criticism. Neither are dower or gloomy. Good pieces of writing.