by the way,i was in new york city during september 11,i had some luck cause i have an accent so they consederd me as a french canadian(this was ok as no body knew that im egyption & muslim)i saw them talkin about islam,guys we r the reason,we never introduce islam in a good way,every time i ask any amrican about islam he tells me oh this religion that make the man kiss the ground 5 times a day,yea they always say this,we ve 2 introduce islam in an easy way,the amirican people r nice people when it come 2 mind u can always win a discussion with an amrican person about islam,palastine,christianty,they dont believe in the christian religion at all

On Monday, technology executives, including Microsoft's Steve Ballmer, Dell Computer's Michael Dell and Intel's Craig Barrett, said in an open letter to entertainment industry executives that they were not about to create technology that limits computer users ability to copy and play digital media.

The letter was in response a missive from executives from Disney, News Corporation and others, urging curbs on technology that lets users freely copy digital movies, music and other content.

There are companies in this world whose sole business is to hold patents and figure out ways to turn them into money from purported infringers. Such companies consist of single file drawers in law offices. They don't care about being unpopular; in fact, natural selection probably ensures they are run by active schmucks.

There is a thread of thinking in the plaintiff's bar generally, and in the intellectual-property bar particularly, that goes like this:

    People do X.
    If I had ten cents for every time someone did X, I'd be a rich man.
    Therefore the right to charge to do X, if it existed, would be valuable.
    Therefore it exists.
    Therefore I have a right to charge anyone who does X ten cents.
    QED.

Examples of the principle:

Maybe you're too young to remember this, but back around 1987, Apple floated a trial balloon of charging a licensing fee to use the Macintosh OS and Toolbox APIs. There was some stammering that somehow people would still bother to learn these APIs because they would still be openly documented, and developers who were sufficiently-small or sufficiently-noncommercial, or sufficiently-whatever, would be allowed to use them for free. The principle: If I had a dime for every program people sold for my computer...

People buy music in one format (primarily CDs) and format-shift them for archiving, mix, and portability. The record industry says that if it had a dime for every copy a customer made for his own use...

The people who believe these things, because they have that lunatic syllogism in their heads, actually think they have a Perfect Right to demand their dimes. It's the people who are denying them their Dime Property who are the pirates and lowlifes. The Dime Property Lobby thinks it's very unfair that you call them "desperate" and undeserving of friends.

Brian, you worry waaaay too much about this stuff.

Apple makes great products. Their computers are the most innovative, easiest to use, highest value machines that exist. What's more, their software is developed with the philosophy that keeps me from breaking computers. More is better, and listen to the people so as to find out what we're doing wrong.

This is a philosophy some people just don't get. These people see only the bottom line. They do not appreciate innovation, nor style, nor creativity. They are perfectly happy to pay 500 bucks less up front for their computer, only to spend 2000 over the course of two or three years to keep it "up to date", at the end of which, it becomes useless. These people buy a chevy, and scoff at the shiny new Ferrari that passes them on the highway. After all, the Ferrari owner is just showing off. He's not actually enjoying his hand-crafted leather, nor his racecar handling, nor the 50 odd years of design, craftsmanship, and flat out LOVE that went into crafting his automobile.

Because, after all, all anyone has to do is get to the mall and back, right?

Apple is a great company, run by someone who cares for it more then anything. Anyone can jump around like a monkey and scream "I LOVE THIS COMPANY!" at the top of their lungs while making an eight figure salary. But how many can do so time and time again, only because they enjoy it, while paying themselves a buck a year?

Steve Jobs has his flaws, but he has broken the mold and reinvented the wheel for 20 years, and he isn't showing any signs of stopping now. Apple has a lot of money in the bank. They're selling computers. They're buying up companies like you and I buy pizza. They're obviously doing a great many things RIGHT, regardless of what anyone else has to say about them.

The windows user, much like the person in the chevy, has no idea about things like Aqua. They have no idea how much easier, or downright enjoyable using a computer can be. They don't know about clicking a button, and having the audio gain of each and every one of your mp3's normalized. They wouldn't dream of plugging in a video camera, adding effects that only a few years ago would have been possible by only film studios, and then burning it to a DVD. They don't believe that sort of thing is possible, nor that a company would give its customers such software for free.

They are the same people who see the bright red Ferrari and say: "Oh, he's just making up for a small penis." while having a good chuckle.

Well, you know what? I'm tired of being an apologist for Apple. I don't HAVE to be, because they are the most successful total-widget company on the freaking planet. They make computers THAT I LIKE TO USE. And after using basically every major system made for over ten years, it is the ONLY one that I like to use.

Be that as it may, I have sold dozens of computers for Apple by simply showing my friends and associates my own. When I brought my brand new Tibook into IBM with me, a good number of people actually cringed when they looked back at their PC laptops.

Some, however, just scoffed. "Who would ever need something like that." After all, it's just like buying a Ferrari. To someone who owns a chevy anyway.

Yaknow what? I don't care one bit anymore. I use the best, most innovative, most reliable, and most FUN computers that exist. If someone else wants to sick with their chevy, with their blue screens of death, their horrible UIs, and laughable implementations of things I had on my computer ten years ago, then they can go right ahead. It certainly won't be any skin off my nose.

And for the other people, who want to scoff and laugh at me because I use the Ferrari of computers, well to quote Two, "They can suck my fucking cock!"

I'll be sure and wave as I pass them on the freeway.

Brian isn't going to like this, but innovation isn't important. Or rather, it is, but not as important as other factors.

Innovation is important during the expansion phase of a market, before the products become mature and while new uses are being found. But we're past that now, and other factors are more critical for the majority of users.

And because the products truly have matured, most of Apple's innovation now looks either totally useless and cosmetic (e.g. the LCD iMac Luxo-Junior case design) or at the fringes (e.g. Aqua eye-candy). Of the rest, most is at best transient and doesn't represent innovation so much as the result of a forced march.

For instance, he trumpets shipment of DVD-burners by Apple. Well, Apple was first, but not by much; they were available for PCs very soon thereafter. And Apple didn't invent the DVD-burner; it's just the first company to reach the market with a computer containing one after they became available from other vendors.

People aren't talking about [coolness, innovation, etc.] because they don't matter. If this were a sporting event, the Computer Sports League, I'd be in there rooting for Apple too. Alas, it isn't, and no amount of coolness can overcome the dramatic advantages of network effect and familiarity that the PC has for me.

I'm afraid Brian needs to start with himself, because the message he has been delivering is one PC users don't really care about. It may be true, but it isn't important.

It's not just that the presentation of the case needs to change. The case itself is the wrong one. Changing the way in which you describe it won't help.

Here's the key: stop talking about "insanely great". Talk about "good enough".

The problems this highlights aren't going to go away either unless we (and the US especially) change the way we handle patents. More and more "open standards" rely on patents that are starting to look like time-bombs to us and hidden treasure to companies who own (or have acquired) the patents. MPEG-4 was so encumbered by licensing issues that while it's been "out" and finished for more than three years, no products used it because they couldn't figure out a cost-effective way of implementing it. Now it's 3 years behind competing products like Sorenson 3 (and DivX, now that it's getting legitimate customers and not just sweaty DVD ripping nerd-childs) and its video quality is sorely lacking. But what if MPEG-LA had just sat on the licensing fees for a few years and then started charging? What if Microsoft decides tomorrow that since it owns patents on NTFS, (V)FAT(12/16/32), it can kill off competition from Mac and Linux by charging royalties for implementations of code that reads those filesystems? What if some relic of the dark ages rears his ugly head up next week and demands royalties for internal combustion engines? Will we all be willing to pay more for cars?

Some analysts have also urged Apple to move to microchips from Intel Corp. INTC.O from those made by Motorola Inc. MOT.N and International Business Machines Corp. IBM.N to cut costs.

Asked about that possibility, Jobs said that first the company had to finish the transition to the OS X operating system, expected around the end of this year.

"Then we'll have options, and we like to have options," he said.

Paul has this to say:

Actually, that's not CEO-ese. That's politic-speak, much as Clinton used on the Koyto thing. "Yeah, well, we'll take that under strong advisement and do it as soon as is possible. And in the meantime, we'll study it a whole bunch."

Read: "Yeah, that'll happen about three years after the end of eternity."

Jobs said that for two reasons. 1) To have IBM nicely call up and start negotiating cost cuts on power4's, and 2) To scare the fuck out of mot for various reasons. Or, the lucky third reason he uses so well: 3) Time to say something vague the media can't read in to so they'll leave me the hell alone.

Besides, it would be nearly impossible for them to switch to intel. Even of compiling OS X into an intel environment would be quite simple (which it is), the problem then lies with the thousands of apps. They're all distributed in binary images. They'd all have to be recompiled and redistributed. So vendors would either have to eat the cost and provide intel version to their ppc registered users, of make everyone buy all of their software again.

This is, of course, ignoring the obvious alienation of Apple's loyal user base.

I don't see it happening.

Also, physics comes into play. They'd have to redesign every single case for every single computer they make, else they'd melt with P4 procs. Further, things like the cube (which may be coming back), the new iMac, and all of the laptops would be impossible, as you simply couldn't get the heat out.

That also includes the XServe.

Nooo, Apple isn't going to be doing that. IF (big if, aside from what den Beste would have one believe) Mot cuts the chip fab, Apple will either strike a deal with IBM real quick (and with millions of users-- they have bargaining power), or start their own chip fab. It's not like they don't have the money to build the site, hire the people, and license the design. Or roll their own.

The latter is considerably more expensive, and no doubt people would be calling for the doom of apple if they go and spend a few billion so they can make their own chips for their slow [sic] computers. But, it would remove the gloves so far as processor design goes.

Know how much of a perfectionist Jobs is? Wait until he has his own chip fab to play with.

Ehh, maybe. Yes, I agree that he's certainly likely to have had some kind of massive contingency plan all along, and one that doesn't involve a huge compromise of his design ideals which currently make Motorola's chips the only ones suitable for the job.

But, you know... I'm half tempted to say "Hurry up and let's have whatever's going to happen happen", so we can stop with the guesswork and know what we're up against.

Over the course of the past week, we've been hearing concern and negative comments from some Apple employees. A number of employees feel that the move will be a big mistake, and doubt that .Mac will attract as many subscribers as Apple is expecting.

Chief among the worriers: Microsoft, whose Office software has long been pivotal to the Macintosh. Microsoft says sales of a version of Office specially tailored for OS X-equipped Macintoshes have been sluggish, totaling only 300,000 copies since it was released in November -- behind the pace of the 750,000 it had expected over the first year.

Microsoft blames Apple. "There hasn't been a concerted effort to promote Mac OS X, even though the opportunity is there and our willingness is there," says Kevin Browne, who heads Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit.

Mr. Browne says Microsoft is committed to delivering another version of Office for Macintosh in 2003. But beyond that, he says, "it's harder to predict. If things don't dramatically turn around, we'll be evaluating this business with Apple."

But John Dunlop, one of its senior design engineers, sees the possibility of MPEG4 being overtaken by the Advanced Video Coding H.264 standard. H.264 is 25% better than MPEG4, says Dunlop, who also notes challenges from the DIVX and Real Networks technologies.

Even the Moving Pictures Experts Group (MPEG) committee is concerned. Rob Koenen, president of the MPEG4 Industry Forum, said: “It's make or break for MPEG4. The standard was frozen three-and-a-half years ago, and licences should already have been available.”