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gnome
2 August 2011
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Apple schnapple. Though the prices shown sound more like that should be snaffle, and that's putting it very politely.
Comment made about the PC & Tech Authority article:
Here's how much Apple's iCloud will cost Australians?
This screenshot shows what Australians will pay for extra storage with Apple's iCloud storage service.
What do you think? Join the discussion. |
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photohounds
2 August 2011
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Google probably very reliable, but probably not the cheapers out there ...
* 20 GB - $5/yr
* 80 GB - $20/yr
* 200 GB - $50/yr
* 400 GB - $100/yr
* 1 TB - $256/yr
Lots cheaper, eh? |
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geller
3 August 2011
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Is that how much google is? that's way cheap. at those monthly prices, dropbox is more than $100 a year for 50GB. |
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photohounds
3 August 2011
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Yep, that's the Google cost. And they are highly experienced at storing extremely large data volumes. They don't go down often and have recovered user data when things went pear shaped. Perhaps not your altruistic best friend, but sufficiently trustworthy for the task IMO.
I was told recently that the linux box count that drives the search engine now exceeds one million servers! If that's accurate, oi vey! Use a web server, use a search engine, use a router at home and it's probably some linux flavour. Even the Big A usae a *nix derivative. |
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amcmo
3 August 2011
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So Apple aren't as cheap as Google, still peanuts. The proof of value will be in the integration with Apple apps (even our PC users use iTunes, don't know what the Linux guys will do)
Google have had a couple of well publicised failures, ok they did sort them in the end.
I'd probably trust Apple a more than Google (we only do evil) for my own data, however neither will get any company data. |
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photohounds
3 August 2011
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Hahahaha rational thinking? The Big A sureley can't be 5 times as good as 99.99% reliability as that's what they are asking. Best read the PDS ... hahahaha
Erm sorry, fanboys do that to me :) Google give me enough that's good and free to give them a few bob.. that's a rational decision, don't love the Big G, and they do make $$$ - but they give enough back, including the world's best search engine, free photo storage and now Google+ |
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amcmo
4 August 2011
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Sorry, no fanbois, however based on your 'Google or Death' type posts, I would question your ability to be unbaised, especially where Apple is involved.
As I've said often enough we're muti-platform.
I can support the good aspects of any of our Apple, in House Build, Linux, Windows (and even Android phones), and yes we use Google search as standard, though on the understanding that they do manipulate some results for their own financial benefit.
The fact remains that Google have been accused of (and fined) for significant privacy intrusion and theft of data worldwide to make them a questionable partner.
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photohounds
4 August 2011
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'the fact' 'Google or die'? A comeback comedy routine?
I see no evidence that either is more trustworthy than the other inlight of their recent exposed activities.
'Facts ARE':
* G does have the storage/recovery runs onthe board and is also multi-platform.
* G DOES give away some very useful software.
* A has been shown to have similar disregard for privacy considering their lesser access to it
* A promotes PROPRIETARY 'solutions' almost exclusively
* G has at least some openness in their offerings
* A would manipulate search results just like G and M$ do (the infotech biz is like that)
* A costs about 5 times as much as G for no tangible benifit unless you count brand loyalty
* We all can choose who we want, if you choose A that's entirely your business
* I *did* say G may not be the cheapest above
* It is reasonable to compare prices for similar services
* It is wise to weigh cost vs benefit - just like real shopping
* They all want to benifit from information, they ARE in biz after all.
* *hate* these little text entry boxes! |
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amcmo
4 August 2011
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MY POINT EXACTLY!
I am happy to consider the pro and con of either party and we use both.
My ONly issue is with those who seem to imagine that because they use the words 'open source' often enough that somehow makes Google/Android superior. |
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rubaiyat
4 August 2011
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I'll bite.
Where has Apple ripped off massive amounts of its customer's data and let loose their personal details?
What deals has Apple stitched up with the Chinese dictatorship?
How are Apple's solutions almost exclusively proprietry?
How has Apple not given away very useful appliactions? (do you want a list?)
Edited by rubaiyat: 4/8/2011 12:08:59 PM |
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photohounds
4 August 2011
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List please and when Big A DOES have access to data wahtch that space. You can't corrupt/steal stuff you don't HAVE. |
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Slatts
4 August 2011
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photohounds wrote:
* *hate* these little text entry boxes!
If you were using FF5 you would notice that, in the bottom right corner of the text box, you can click and drag it to resize.
I believe that other browsers also have this function.
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photohounds
4 August 2011
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I might install that, Slatts. Thanks. |
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photohounds
4 August 2011
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Ruby.
Apple has little data (at the moment) watch their behaviour change when they do ... yours?
They've stitched up as many deals as they *have been offered*
Being caught does NOT mean you are the only one who transcends.
Proprietary, $ware based on FREEbsd, but designed to keep others out. Behaviour copied from other behemoths.
That "list" cannot include anything that only runs on THEIR OSs. That's not really 'giving', is it now.?
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rubaiyat
5 August 2011
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Apple has a lot of data both from registrations, Safari, and the iTunes store.
Save your accusations for actual offences, not "Future Crime". Or you are as equally guilty.
Apple uses an enormous amount of open software and hardware and given they are wildly more successful than Ubuntu, the model of spending enormous amounts on development and NOT giving it ALL away seems to be working for them.
I think I've asked you this before. Are you paid for your work? If so, given your strident opposition to capitalism, why aren't you just giving it away?
You want milk, give the cow its cud to chew.
Why does any of this bother you? Just use Linux, it has everything you want right?
Edited by rubaiyat: 5/8/2011 02:40:47 PM |
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photohounds
5 August 2011
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rubaiyat wrote:
Apple uses an enormous amount of open software and hardware and given they are wildly more successful than Ubuntu, the model of spending enormous amounts on development and NOT giving it ALL away seems to be working for them.
x, it has everything you want right?
Edited by rubaiyat: 5/8/2011 02:40:47 PM
Yep take, but not return - a great model to be spruiking. Most of us need to work, and that's an entirely different model.
That does not imply that profit is 'bad', greed does not server society well.
AM The Big G want to make SH*loads of cash, it is not inherently evil unless you use dirty tactics to defeat competition instead of innovation. the search engine was simply better - still is. Making something is an even bigger effort - Go Samsung, LG etc! A diverse market is better than a monoculture in so many ways.
If you can't see that, that's your issue. |
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amcmo
5 August 2011
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Photo you defeat yourself with your own argument.
Google wants a monoculture, it controls the O/S and makes the money while a great number of hardware manufacturers make damn all profit (read the latest smartphone profit stats) fighting each other.
Apple does contribute to open source - check your facts.
If Oracle is correct, Google did use underhand tactics, appropriating (stealing) code that was not open source and using it for their own ends.
There is nothing wrong with Apple and others defending their innovation with patents that they protect. You conveniently forget a decade of strong innovation by Apple simpley because it doesn't fit with your view of the world.
You also seem to be ignoring the fact that Google wanted to buy the Nortel patents and refused to join the group that was in the end sucessful. That group, including Apple, was prepared to share them equally. Google wanted the patents for themselves only and refused to join! You can be certain Google would have used them to block others from competing. |
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photohounds
9 August 2011
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Really ...it does not take a great sense of history to see SCO all over again. Buying up patents to keep competitors out. We're not talking about protecting what you are about to CREATE eg Android, but filing frivoulous and often false suits based in part on these acquisitions and in part on sheer bloody stupidity (The Apple phone 'copy' case for one). Retrospectively 'owning' IP those MS-encouraged idiots at the Sabnta Cruz Operation (SCO0.
The DOJ is after these clowns ...
http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/April/11-at-491.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903635604576476430510833852.html
I'm not painting Google as poor, little, innocent OR altruistic, they big biz and actmostly in their interest as we all know.
However Google HAVE created a formidable platform, based on Linx that benefits and will continue to benefit the buyers of a large range of devices for DECADES, and have built the market form ZERO to challenging the giants in this field in a couple of years.
THAT, (competition) is what the incumbents fear most because they are addicted to short term gains from the "lock 'em into OUR ecosystem", "Kill off competition with largely bogus patents" approach. Instead they should respond with the better products they are capable of - just like car makers have to.
SCO, SCO, SCO - if you cant DO better, stuff it up for anybody who has a credible go and buggfer the consumers who will beneift from cheap, good Android devices.
That's right, not everyone wants (or can afford) a $900 galaxy Sii or iphone. Some are happy with cut down functionality with some 'smart' attributes at a great price. The Big A and MS are not interested in bread and butter and THAT probably will change when their shenannigans fail. I call it patent stupidity. |
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amcmo
9 August 2011
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SCO has nothing to do with this discussion.
That was a company rapidly disappearing up it's own ... that grabbed at a strategy to save themselves. Reality is they had not negotiated the patent purchase correctly and left ownership of the crucial parts elsewhere.
Google have 'created' a platform that uses substantial code that is owned by someone else (ie. Stealing!). Forget how wonderful anyone may think Android is and how beneficial it is to have it out there as a platform, we're talking basic law here.
At least two of their internal emails confirm that they knew they were using someone else's code and one recommended negotiating a licence, while they could have done so without too much trouble.
They chose to ignore the recommendation and proceeded to 'steal' the code in the hope that they would not get caught. Seems to be a pattern there.
They have been caught, and now we witness them trying to get emails declared as PRIVILEGED COMMUNICATION, even though the greeting was to a co-worker. The last thing they want is the last of the two emails (or any others waiting to be discovered) put in front of a jury as they apear to show a deliberate disregard for the patent, which immediately opens them to punitive damages in the hundreds of millions, or even billions.
Sorry, but this appears to show a continued belief in certain quarters of Google that they are above the law, and as long as they preach the 'Open Source' mantra the majority will forgive all.
The DOJ are not 'after them' (MS/Apple/Et All) as you claim - politicians are.
They have responded to bleating by Google (who tried to grab the patents for themselves) and others to force transfer of some patents to Open Source, solely to encourage competition (or some would say to guarantee Google's business model). Of course if Google had won the patents, we do not know how keen they would have been to have the patents effectively stripped from them and handed to competitors. The whole focus on this probe is to hand licences to Open Source, effectively protecting one group over another.
Given the fact that Android is only one of a number of phone platforms (iOS, Win, RIM, Nokia, Samsung and LG internal platforms, Linux) it seems strange that they are benefitting from a DOJ (Govt) strategy to ensure their survival. OK, so it's very popular, does not give it any right to be protected from patent law more than any other platform. They should pay patent royalties the same as anyone else if they are warranted. (Forget for the purpose of this discussion whether the patents are valid - a whole other subject.)
The current government in the US (Democrats) are displaying a significant anti-business stance in their handling of this and many other such matters (trying to force Boeing to close a non-union factory to put the work with a union factory that went on strike last year and cost billions in lost earnings, despite the fact that they are also expanding the union factory at the same time...) They of course calling it levelling the playing field (socialism/communism by any other name?), others call it intefering in the free market.
To be blunt, the current DOJ investigation is more a political process than anything to do with actual law. Google are fostering this by bleating on about Open Source, when the real money making part of the whole eco is tightly controlled by Google.
When you look at the stats, the handset manufacturers are barely exisiting, and Google's fear is that if they have to start paying patent royalties (as everyone else has to), this will wipe out the price advantage Android phones hold, make them uncompetitive and the handset manufacturers will go back to Win or their own internal platforms and Google will be left without their cash cow!
Whether you're on the industry side or the Android side, those are the realities of this stoush. (PCA, I should be on your payroll, this is the sort of information / opinion editorial you should be putting out there alongside the original headline grabbing, but woefully light on fact article.)
Instead of merely reprinting blog posts from overseas, get some controversial opinion editorial (no I don't mean Healey's 'I love Android' mumblings)
Edited by amcmo: 9/8/2011 12:46:52 PM
Edited by amcmo: 9/8/2011 12:50:25 PM |
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photohounds
9 August 2011
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Good dissertation AM, perhaps you should indeed be on the payroll :)
I still harbour the belief that 10,000 pairs of eyes over open source code VS. a few dozen over proprietary code, subcontracted to code sweat shops in India (etc.) will squash bugs faster, and is already producing superior code in many instances.
You may recall in the Infancy of PCs the source was usually included on the diskette especially for device drivers.
The "Bill letter" in '76 (was it?), changed all that openness. This industry started and thrived with collaboration.
The logical conclusion will quite likely be the same, except for niche software makers, some of which I like to buy.
You say: "handset manufacturers are barely exisiting".
I doubt that - it's an investment in thier future, otherwise they simply would not bother. Telcos do OK out of Android too, from what I read.
Device makers might just be doing a little better out of Android than you suggest. Still early days.
The interconnectivity can be negotiated instead of prescribed by one maker or two.
Android may well become the "industry side", it seems is on its way to enjoying almost all makers having some implementation of it.
The SCO allusion is quite valid - perhaps not the precise mechanism, but the intent behind the big fellers is clear - to profit from what has been achieved and what threatens their cartel.
MS already makes more from Android than from their own platform and we didn't see the patent suits until AFTER Android was successful.
So the cartel is defending principle, and only Google is seeking as much loot as possible? No surprise, eh? They are ALL companies after all.
I hace seen "Priveleged communications" raise their head when a government employee has misused their office to adversely affect people, here in OZ.
Don't like "qualified legal privilege" much myself, but that's the way it is. |
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amcmo
9 August 2011
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I'm taking the last released accounts from the various manufactuers.
As Samsung have suddenly 'clammed up' (possibly to hide figures in case Apple win - makes it harder to set the payout), they might be the exception, however HTC's profits are not too bright, LG is making a loss, as are Motorola and others.
Those who are making profits are making damn all per handset, achieving profit based on volume.
Given the number of supposed patents involved, if HTC has to make any more royalty payments, they head for loss, and LG and Moto's positions could become untenable. Add a dollar here and a dollar there to royalties per handset and kiss any profit goodbye.
Apple make something approaching 60% of the profits in handset sales from memory, everyone else scraps over the rest.
I'm not suggesting that MS etc are defending principle. They developed (or purchased) technology and are asserting their (right?) to profit from, or to even prevent sales of offending product someone else manufactures. That's what patent law is all about. Every PC sold has a portion paid to various manufacturers (and patent trolls)for technology they developed or vague sketches on a patent application. You could probably knock more than a few $ off the price if that were not the case.
I'm a firm believer that patents should be provisional for say 2-3 years. If you don't demonstrate a prototype using the technology or significant laboratory progress, you should lose it. Coming out with a vague idea, patenting, then sitting on it for years before using every stretch known to man to apply to and profit from someone else's groundbreaking product does not sit well with me, and I suspect a majority.
Open source has benefits, however I can recall years of open source work where the same bugs keep being replicated as everyone focussed on only what interested them. 10,000 (if it's that many) well intentioned enthusiasts and a few professionals are not necessarily any better at clean code than a handful of developers who's primary existence is that one O/S or application.
On PRIVILEGED COMMUNICATION, Google do not deny it's existence and accuracy, they are attempting to prevent it being used in court as it's the proverbial 'smoking gun plus corpse'.
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blockcentre
9 August 2011
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amcmo wrote: however HTC's profits are not too bright
You might want to check the facts on that one. HTC has been doubling profits each quarter for at least the past year. They are not hurting.
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amcmo
9 August 2011
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No problems with the facts. Their profits on volume are not too bright.
While HTC profit share increased from 6% to 7.4% they are seen as vulnerable to any increased patent royaltes, with relatively slim per item profits on their handsets. They are performing better than Motorola and LG, however are still not considered secure.
If they manage to avoid losing any infringment cases and ongoing royalty increases they will probably continue to grow profits with volume, however, on current evidence will continue with slim margins. Any drop in market share or a loss in court (or in the FTC) could be a significant issue. |
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photohounds
13 August 2011
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Rubber patent cases, scatter-gun approach.
We'll see if it works to harm innovation, in the long run.
Like the stupid GUI case against M$ decades ago it can only harm competition - and they lost. |
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amcmo
15 August 2011
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Innovation is not harmed, only copying.
Actually Apple managed to get quite a good payout from MS in the form of an investment to settle all outstanding disputes. |
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photohounds
16 August 2011
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Developnment in a nutshell, copy improve, copy, improve ... Otherwise each vendor would have to write their own programming language and compiler.
Seminal or 'novel' is one of the mentioned requisites for the few patents I have read.
'Novel' seems to make sense (and enforceable AFAIK).
Development of an idea isn't usually 'novel' if it improves and extends work done before. |
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amcmo
16 August 2011
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Sorry Photo, don't follow. It makes no sense in the context of the discussion. |
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photohounds
21 August 2011
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Innovation is often a pseudonym for copying with a few improvements. Most development is built on the work (in some cases on the bones) of others.
Apple has done very little that's seminal - much like MS and no more than Tandy did in terms of improvement - THEY started the 'put a PC in every home' trend - getting right to the mass market - FIRST.
Most progress has been made by hardware makers. Software makers have taken advantage of increase power for decades, often squandering the gains with bloatware. |
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amcmo
22 August 2011
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Potohounds, your logic, or lack thereof defies description
Innovating = copying? Much innovation does depend on developing current technology and making quantum leaps in the tech and it’s application.
Using your logic, since the first CPU the Intel 4004, ( using your logic, they stole other’s ideas in pulling various functions into a single chip) there has been no innovation, just copying and refinement.
Apple is a hardware maker (They design it, which is where the innovation is). They also design CPU’s using the ARM core, are involved in the development of technology (1394, Thunderbolt, others)
It’s about time you gave up on your endless attacks on Apple while professing to not hate them.
Other’s have been suspended for less effort in hijacking threads, while you hijack every thread that can in any way be connected to Apple. Even the news of HP’s cancellation of tablets which had nothing to do with Apple, became an anti-Apple tirade.
Makes one wonder…..
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