Steve Ballmer attacks an Iphone

I liked your jokes, Nick Farrell.

One is tempted to label him simply as a childish sore loser. But that would be so missing the point. This behavior looks more manic. Not to mention anti-social. At most other companies, in any other position - he would be fired and removed as a toxic threat to the other employees.

I think the saddest thing is that MS has copied Apple GUI and OS since well BEFORE Win 98. (Admittedly, Apple though, did not "invent" windows...only saw the potential and brought them to the mainstream) Furthermore, Apple DID REWRITE the entire kernel of it's OS...things like this only make Nick fanboyism seem even more ignorant....

Great article - this is why I read the Inq! I lolled at the editors comment, & Nick's humour. Fantastic (and informative... sort of)!

People need to stop being so uptight.

You manage to be wrong in pretty much everything that you wrote.

1) Apple was not the first one to bring a graphic GUI to the mainstream. It was indeed the first commercially successful one, but that's marketing, not quality.

2) Apple DID NOT rewrote the entire kernel. It is still heavily based on FreeBSD and NetBSD, and still borrows a lot of Unix concepts. Which is not a bad thing.

You have an internet connection so do some research.

... MS gave $100m to Jobs to save his sorry ass from bankruptcy in 1997.

Oh how the fanbois would be laughing now had ol'Bill been a bit more of a tightwad.

MS owns Apple for a decade now..har har

terrible, just terrible.... hello google

Lets cut Apple into segments and get to the core of their business model. They sell PC's that you cannot put together and rarely fix or re configure yourself, a $700 PC that I can in 1 hour put togther, costs about $2500 in Apple specs, don't even mention getting spare parts or the cost. The operating system is not as good as the free Ubuntu. The Final Cut pro is expensive and less user friendly than adobe Premier. Their 'Aiport' costs almost $200 which I can get for PC now for $55 in a reputable router. Their Ipods are expensive MP3 players, with a proprietary format MP3, that are made in sweat shops in China of inferior materials, I worked in the Apple Ipod return and dispatch centre for Australia, I never felt compelled to even purchase a dirt cheap return for employees. The Apple model is 90% image for insecure tech diletantes who want some illusory personality differentiation and individualisation, for facile unintelligent status reasons. The ipod was a stolen idea, they didnt invent windows, the apple logo was stolen from the beatles (there was a legal case). They are at the cutting edge of one thing, closed software or technological systems that give their customers, or what I would call 'marks', the minimum choice and competition, at a grossly inflated price, for usually nothing more substantive than cosmetic reasons. If ignorance, superficiality and gullability is cool, then Apple is cool.

QUOTE -Lets cut Apple into segments and get to the core of their business model. They sell PC's that you cannot put together and rarely fix or re configure yourself, a $700 PC that I can in 1 hour put togther, costs about $2500 in Apple specs, don't even mention getting spare parts or the cost. The operating system is not as good as the free Ubuntu. The Final Cut pro is expensive and less user friendly than adobe Premier. Their 'Aiport' costs almost $200 which I can get for PC now for $55 in a reputable router. Their Ipods are expensive MP3 players, with a proprietary format MP3, that are made in sweat shops in China of inferior materials, I worked in the Apple Ipod return and dispatch centre for Australia, I never felt compelled to even purchase a dirt cheap return for employees. The Apple model is 90% image for insecure tech diletantes who want some illusory personality differentiation and individualisation, for facile unintelligent status reasons. The ipod was a stolen idea, they didnt invent windows, the apple logo was stolen from the beatles (there was a legal case). They are at the cutting edge of one thing, closed software or technological systems that give their customers, or what I would call 'marks', the minimum choice and competition, at a grossly inflated price, for usually nothing more substantive than cosmetic reasons. If ignorance, superficiality and gullability is cool, then Apple is cool. END-QUOTE

You cynical bastard!

Kudos

Mr valour seems to be poorly acquainted with the meaning that the rest of the world ascribes to it. I'd be highly surprised if he was out of short trousers yet, never mind working for Apple at any time in his life as his grasp of the relevant "facts" is so poor.

A workstation class Xeon (Nehalem class) machine with a high efficiency 1000+ watt CPU, hot swap SAS drive bays, three 16 lane full length PCIe slots etc can be purchased in parts form for $700? In his dreams maybe.

Final Cut's user friendliness compared to Premier is an entirely subjective decision (there's plenty of argument on the web either way) and FC has capabilities that Premier lacks. If someone wants FC and not Premier then who the heck does he think he is telling them that they are wrong?

The Airport Extreme includes 802.11a,b,g and n. It runs WiFi networks at both 5GHz and 2.4Ghz simultaneously, is a 4 port gigabit switch and acts as a network file and print server. You can buy a $55 router that does that lot?

Manufacturing of Apple kit occurs in the same factory complexes and conditions that make Dell, HP, Sony, Microsoft, Motorola and Cisco devices, so if you're going to object on that basis you're going to have to pretty much disconnect yourself from the electronic world. The parts are to at least the same specs also.

The idea of a portable MP3 player wasn't new (have Microsoft EVER had a new idea?), but iPods popularised them by coming in designs (both hardware and software) that people wanted to buy & use. The only proprietary part to the formats they play was DRM'ed tracks from the iTunes store (the music labels insisted that DRM be applied), which has now been pretty much phased out now anyway. They are quite happy to play MP3 and WAV format files like the rest of the market, but their native format, AAC, is in fact MP4 audio and is subject to the same kind of licensing as MP3. Many other brand players can handle AAC also, and with a little legitimate effort (i.e. the RIM way, not Palm's approach of trying to pretend to be an iPod) will also synch with iTunes libraries.

The web is littered with examples of serious IT pros who moved to Macs from Windows or Linux and are happy with the change. It's not a case of style over substance for them and they know what they're talking about. For a sizeable number of folks it's all about the software (why else would there be flourishing forums on how to run OS X on a netbook or Wintel box, or would people be buying Psystar machines?).

The argument with Apple Corps (the Beatles label) wasn't over the logo but rather the name Apple as a trademark. When the matter was finally settled in 2007 all of Apple Corps's trademarks were assigned to Apple Inc. Non of these assignments feature the famous bitten apple logo.

You may not like Apple products, but you are not forced to buy them. They compete in an open marketplace and those people who do decide to buy them have, for the most part, made a perfectly rational choice based on their own needs and values. You want to change their minds, then make something that they decide matches their needs better, then spend a boatload of marketing cash trying to get that message across. Simple as that.

Can somebody put that Balmer idiot in a home or shelter PLEASE!
God Bill was terrible, but he's an total-idiot.
And this is telling how we should compute in the future...I feel sad for mankind that we have such morons on the planet.

Is simply ahead of his time. The bias the tech press has for Apple is clear so it's good that we have at least one journalist who is not glued to Apple's hairy bean bag.

I arrived at Safeco Field at half past eight thinking that Paul Allen had finally some intelligence of extra-terrestrials. Imagine how taken aback was I at this spectacle. "Oi, you could have someone's eye out with that, Ginger!" says I. Blimey, it's like This Is Your Life! Tea! That's all I needed! Good cup of tea! Super-heated infusion of free-radicals and tannins, just the thing for healing the synapses. Fat lot of good that was. Here I am thinking it's all waiting. Fish and chips, sausage and mash, beans on toast... No. Nutloaf would be more appropriate. I should have gone dousing for humpback whale on the Thames. I hope you're getting all this down!

Where was I? Oh. That sonic screwdriver is very good at tweaking those Iploding devices. Pity is really blokes can't get their own down at the Tesco. Twits_ I mean tweets, shorely.

d'Emballmer has got few steps to take to catch up with republic of france Teco worker. So Far 2 Suicides month have been norm. Some from Wireless div, here:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,550083,00.html

Theres NO Reason this couldn't spread to US Telcom, in fact maybe it has, who knows.

Phonecide is nothing compared to phoneworkercide. Ballmer Get Grip On, Its' Probably Their fault.
YOUTHENTELCO.

Drashek

read the article (about the .mov file format and a/v programs) on 'roughlydrafted.com' for the reason for the 100m payment to apple in 97 from microsoft.

while it did bail out apple, microsoft tried to 'bully' apple and it lost.

Steve T pretty much shut the door on haters who know nothing and spout BS like it's fact e.g. Bravid Valour. It surprises me that people say they have "facts" as in Bravid's title, yet they are closer to not having a clue about a subject.
This ignorance is on both sides of the debate, but PC users, who have never used the Apple, Linux or whatever product they're slamming, are the vast majority of the naive.

Why can't Drasheks be hit by that same rash.... :(

Actually Creative Labs is what started the Mp3 player off. Netgear and Linksys had 5Ghz and better range WAY before Snapple had their crashport. Apple should drop the ugly white, cheap plastic look and go for something with substance. Fill in the empty spots. Make me feel like I am getting some for my money. Their laptops look like a cheap wal mart kids toy. I want color.. I want buttons that have buttons...I do not want to see an empty spot on my Laptop.

The best thing for Microsoft (MS) is to get rid of that overpaid rambling moron of a CEO. How he could fool Gates is beyond me (perhaps Gates is a worse manager) Remember, he is responsible for MS' atrocious reputation!

an article on Wired on the new Zune and it was a guy from Apple who listed everything wrong about it and why it would fail.

You know, it's not really that I mind Apple as much as I mind a press that writes "articles" for the highest bidder. But hey -it was the same press that said Iraq had WMDs and Al Quaida so I guess I should have been ignoring it for a long time. Figure I'll just start now.