Apple unveil iPhone 4S, release dates for iOS 5 and iCloud

[Tom Hendricks]

I can understand your particular plight, but your kind of dilemma is a minority when it comes to the AppStore. Most Apple users, have probably an iMac and a Macbook Pro, maybe an Mac Air. So the majority of Apple users will never be in your situation.

Also you have to remember, people who complain about Apple and Mac's being a closed system don't understand that the reason is that its not made for you. If you want the open system, you should go with Linux. Apple products are made, more or less for consumers and not tinkers. You unbox your Apple product and just use it. You can tweak it a little here and there, upgrade Ram add graphics card (Mac Pro) but thats about it. They are catering to the people who have had PC's in the past and were to much work. Thats why I believe that people are swarming to Apple in droves. They really do just want it to work! Which it does, most of the time. When it doesn't, they simplified the process with the genius bar and the people are happy. They take the scariness of something going wrong with your machine out of the equation. For those who want to tinker, build your own machine. You are right, Mac isn't for you. However when it comes to the consumer population, you are in the far minority. Back when Apple first faltered, they did because they had a closed system. Because at that time, it was the tinkers who drove PC sales. Now that is not the case, its the consumers who drives everything. So this same closeness is the heart of Apples growth.

...and Apple's evil, draconian, walled-garden App Store makes copy protection measures like my dongle redundant.

Try using the App Store on one machine to acquire Lion Server for another machine that isn't (and must never be) on the net.

It's a bastard. Couldn't download it cos it must be on the machine that requests it. And that machine must already be running Lion Workstation (the Server part is only 14mb!).

Let alone the fact I actually need 3 licences. So much for ease of use.

 

[Candlelight]

I can understand your particular plight, but your kind of dilemma is a minority when it comes to the AppStore. Most Apple users, have probably an iMac and a Macbook Pro, maybe an Mac Air. So the majority of Apple users will never be in your situation.

Also you have to remember, people who complain about Apple and Mac's being a closed system don't understand that the reason is that its not made for you. If you want the open system, you should go with Linux.

This is for a Fileserver running an Xsan that serves half a dozen Mac pro clients - all Mac hardware and software!

 

[David cgc]

Thank you for proving my point to the last letter.

I'm sorry, did you actually have a use-case for a USB port on an iPad, or would having one on there just make you feel better, much like this nigh-useless ExpressCard slot on my laptop?

 

[Candlelight]

Thank you for proving my point to the last letter.

I'm sorry, did you actually have a use-case for a USB port on an iPad, or would having one on there just make you feel better, much like this nigh-useless ExpressCard slot on my laptop?

I wish I had an ExpressCard slot. I've never used my SD card slot.

 

[David cgc]

Ironically, the only thing I've ever considered putting in my ExpressCard slot is an SD reader, but the amount of times I have a reason to interact with an SD card outside of a camera is vanishingly small (twice, putting pictures on my Mom's digital photo frame), so it's not worth the trouble to get even if I'd use it if it was there. USB and Firewire have hubs or daisy-chain, so I don't need extra ports. I saw an SSD option while researching that post, and that looks the most useful expansion, but if I really wanted internal flash memory, I'm the kind of ornery son-of-a-bitch who'd crack the case and swap it in place of either the hard disk or the superdrive.