With Sarbanes-Oxley some companies have gotten very leery of "free" updates to existing products that add features for fear of running afoul of financial disclosure laws and having to restate past earnings. It's safer to chareg and avoid any possible violation.
I really think this is th gist ofteh problem. I'm no Apple fan (other than owning an iPod Nano), but they ven drew fire for the $2 fee for enabling 802.11n, so I major change inthe software and functionality of the Touch would be another governmental admin nightmare.
Still, it doesn't answer the question of why they left email out in thr first place...
I use live.mail2web and my tasks are synced.I believe mail2web is using ms exchange 2003. I dont use notes anymore for anything important because they dont sync.
Do you have an MS Outlook machine syncing tasks as well? I am using the latest Exchange release (2007? 2008?), renting from www.themessagecenter.com. My daily environment was 100% Office 2004, but Tasks, Notes and Categories did not sync with my Tilt. Now if I fire up my PC with Outlook 2007 and add a Task, it syncs with my Tilt. That only happened when data was entered from a true Outlook machine, not Entourage.
Since I am a heavy Task & Category user I moved to iCal & Mail in Leopard, use a cable and MissingSync. It's 2001 all over again.
I was really hoping Office 2008 for Mac was going to have full Exchange support. Oh, well. I just saved $200+ by not buying the upgrade.
Gripe about Apple all you want, but one thing that I think is hard to deny is that they seem to be very good at making some pretty advanced tech easy to use by just about anyone. They have a strong history of this, and to me it's little wonder that they operate the way they do.
I'm not interested in an iPhone until it has HSDPA and a true GPS chipset. Once that happens, goodbye WM...
It won't be as slim and sexy then, at least with the current battery set-up. Take that back it could be as slim and sexy, but 1/2 the battery life it has now.
I also want what you want. SlingBox on my iPhone via HSDPA....ooohhhh
unxmully: I guess point of view changes everything. Apple's arrogance has soured me on any advantages they might have. I could run OSX, but I'd either have to buy Apple-approved hardware or spend time hacking each new version to run (and quite possibly not having all the hardware work because the drivers aren't there), then I have to load in VMWare to run those applications that only run under Windows. Or I could run Windows and be done with it. There are countless other examples.
One man's arrogance is another's avoiding problems with bad device drivers. People buy apple precisely because you don't have to hack systems together and face all of those driver problems. That's not arrogance to me.
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One problem is everyone of us sees very clearly what Microsoft, Apple, Sony, etc should be doing, yet most of us don't agree on what that is. Take the close button, for example. I've suggested using tap to minimize and tap and hold to close myself, but if Microsoft put in a "really close" button, you'd suddenly have a bunch of people compaining that they can't switch between applications as easily as they used to.
Sorry but that's just plain wrong. The x paradigm comes from windows where it closes a window. If you're going to use the same start-button and similar approach to windows, the x closes. If they'd followed that from the start, no one would have any problems.
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On the whole, I like Microsoft's more open approach, but that's just from my point of view.
I take it you mean open as in run on any hardware rather than open as in open source.
Microsoft are not open, they're the most closed operation around. From their closed protocols in exchange and trying to break samba to the ban on staff even looking at open source never mind working on it.
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jlc61: I guess Sarbanes-Oxley just goes to show how laws can mess up things they're trying to fix. It seems to me that the law is the problem, not the free updates. Unfortunately, not giving away free updates is easier than trying to fix the law.
So far I've not seen any justification for the arrogance tag.
Ummm...$19.95 "unreasonable" for an Ipod Touch upgrade? How much is it to purchase a single application for a Win Mobile device? How much is it to purchase a Windows upgrade for my desktop machine?
Why do people continue to believe that software upgrades should be provided at no cost? Consumer electronics have razor-thin margins and software developers cost money. It certainly seems reasonable to me to pay a small anount to insure that a company continues to support and enhance the device that I purchased.
While I'd have to say that comparing purchasing an upgrade to purchasing an application isn't quite equivalent, I'd still agree with the gist. I'm always grateful when a developer allows free upgrades (and possibly a bit worried that they won't be so motivated to improving the product). I'm also always quick to "pay" for programs that are done on a "donation if you want to" basis. It's worth it to me to keep the programmer working. Yes, I balk at paying for upgrades that are small, incremental improvements. Most developers (including Microsoft) don't charge for those. I'd definitely draw the line when the update simply fixes bugs. If it adds significant new features and functionality, then it's reasonable to pay to get it.
I like the sort of model that the Pocket Informant people do. You don't pay for "point" upgrades. You get a reduced price for whole-number upgrades. If you bought the program just a short time ago, any upgrade is free. That's completely fair.
__________________
HTC HD2 US (unlocked) + 16GB micro SDHC (in holding)
HTC Evo + 16GB micro SDHC (in use)
I would have to agree. I wonder how many iTouchs they actually sold. I mean I am sure it a lot, but did they really need to charge it? NO
Now with that said I remember hearing from some guys with older Zune's saying how surprised they were that Microsoft did not charge for the recent software upgrade.
unxmully: I guess point of view changes everything. Apple's arrogance has soured me on any advantages they might have. I could run OSX, but I'd either have to buy Apple-approved hardware or spend time hacking each new version to run (and quite possibly not having all the hardware work because the drivers aren't there), then I have to load in VMWare to run those applications that only run under Windows. Or I could run Windows and be done with it. There are countless other examples.
One man's arrogance is another's avoiding problems with bad device drivers. People buy apple precisely because you don't have to hack systems together and face all of those driver problems. That's not arrogance to me.
"Buy" is the operative word there. You buy Apple. Then you buy it again when Apple changes enough that the OS no longer supports the hardware you have. "Arrogance" may be slightly too strong a word, but it's close enough for me to a company that says. "We don't like writing device drivers, so we'll just force you to buy an extremely small subset of what's available and, oh yes, we'll make it so you have to buy ours, not anyone else's (unless you like hacking systems) because we know what's best for you."
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Originally Posted by unxmully
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Originally Posted by Russ Smith
One problem is everyone of us sees very clearly what Microsoft, Apple, Sony, etc should be doing, yet most of us don't agree on what that is. Take the close button, for example. I've suggested using tap to minimize and tap and hold to close myself, but if Microsoft put in a "really close" button, you'd suddenly have a bunch of people compaining that they can't switch between applications as easily as they used to.
Sorry but that's just plain wrong. The x paradigm comes from windows where it closes a window. If you're going to use the same start-button and similar approach to windows, the x closes. If they'd followed that from the start, no one would have any problems.
"Wrong?" Not exactly. "Different" I'd buy. When Pocket PC OS first came out, Microsoft actually did a huge beta-testing/focus group thing that led to the conclusion that people would be happier with minimizing rather than closing, so they actually listened and did it that way. You can certainly argue (and I have) that they could make real closing easier to do when you want to. Compaq's (now HP's) iTask is basically created to do just that. You can also argue that they might have used a different icon to avoid confusion. I'd agree with that. What I can't agree with is that minimizing is wrong and closing is right.
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Originally Posted by unxmully
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Originally Posted by Russ Smith
On the whole, I like Microsoft's more open approach, but that's just from my point of view.
I take it you mean open as in run on any hardware rather than open as in open source.
Microsoft are not open, they're the most closed operation around. From their closed protocols in exchange and trying to break samba to the ban on staff even looking at open source never mind working on it.
What I mean by open (as you thought) is that Microsoft's software runs on the vast majority of available hardware. (I really don't want to get into the open source debate here.) Microsoft's approach (generally) is to support as broad a base as possible. That makes sense when you're selling the OS, not the hardware, but it also makes sense to people like me who like to choose their own hardware.
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Originally Posted by unxmully
So far I've not seen any justification for the arrogance tag.
From the Marriam-Webster Dictionary:
ar·ro·gance
: an attitude of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or in presumptuous claims or assumptions
What I'm referring to is Apple's attitude that they'll decide what we consumers will get. They choose the hardware (within a very narrow sub-set). They choose the OS functionality. Our job is to recognize their genius and buy it. They're obviously right. How else could they have attained their 2.2% market share If that's not arrogance, it's a remarkable facsimile.
__________________
HTC HD2 US (unlocked) + 16GB micro SDHC (in holding)
HTC Evo + 16GB micro SDHC (in use)
I am just happy that apple is willing to upgrade their products, even at a small cost. I owned 5 pocket pc phones before the iPhone, all of them had minimal if any software updates, and did nothing other than a few bug fixes. Even then there were some serious bugs in the software that needed to be addressed, but the company (HTC and PALM) had a new, bigger, better phone they were pushing.
Since I have had my iPhone (Since around August), there have been 4 software updates, all of which offered significant features and upgrades. If apple chooses to make me pay for an upgrade every year or two, I have no problem with that, because even if I was willing to pay for a windows mobile upgrade there simply was none available to purchase because the manufacture had forgotten about me and Microsoft's model does not allow them to support me directly.
I tried since win CE 2.0 to like microsoft's solution, but they were simply too slow to add new features and too slow add real new innovations. Since the very earliest versions of WinMO I wanted a full scale browser, it was the one thing I really, really wanted...but the diluted PIE experience made an ever increasing number of sites un-usable as the web continued to mature, while PIE languished in is own demented universe.
In the end we should all be grateful to apple, because there is finally hope that microsoft will take it's thumb out of it's orifice and make smartphones which are leaps and bounds above the previous generation with each new release; instead of the current WinMO upgrade cycle where a few shiny buttons seems to be all the upgrades you got.
Re: May not be arrogance
If that's not arrogance, it's a remarkable facsimile.
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