[Athens]

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna 

You failed to address my observation that Vista did not require the massive OS rewrite. Adding iCloud to Snow Leopard is no harder than adding it to Vista: that is, not hard at all. Heck, almost everything iCloud does has been done by Apple before in various forms on their older operating systems: contact/calendar syncing, PhotoStream (a rebranded iPhoto sharing), etc. There's nothing really new or hard here, which is why it's so easy to add all this stuff to Vista. All this yapping about "new APIs" is complete nonsense.

This is what it's all about: Apple's typical nickel'n'diming of their Mac customers. It was pathetic to pay for full screen movies, it was pathetic to pay for contact syncing via MobileMe, and it's still pathetic, except they're now pretending it's "free."

Arrr (trying to be nice here) but do you not read. Vista and Windows 7 are basically the same OS under the hood. On top of that if Apple wanted to reach market share on the Windows side it would also release stuff for XP which collectively is still more popular then either Vista or Windows 7 or was until a couple months ago. Anything that works on Windows 7 will work on Vista. Anything on Vista will work on 7. They are not that different. And the iCloud support on Windows is pitiful. The iCloud elements that work on Windows are the same elements that work on 10.5, and 10.4. Really stop talking about Windows support. Its crappy at best. Its like how iTunes has always been second rate on Windows (only fixing movie sharing with the latest update which was broken for ages) and Safari is still horrible on Windows.

Apples mentality. Any one on Snow Leopard should upgrade to Lion. So its a non issue in there eyes. And this has always been Apples way. If you where a old timer with Apple like me you would know this. They did this with the 68k CPU, they did this with the PPC. They did this with ADP which really ticked a lot of people off. They did this with SCSI. They did this with firewire 400 on new machines and so on. Apple has always been about looking forward and not backwards. If this concept is to hard to understand then you should go look at a PC and live in the past.

[Athens]

PS this is why the lounge is dead, good topics like this get transferred out of the lounge.


Another thing to consider like the lack of SIRI support on iPhone 4 could be they dont want every mac and every phone to hit the servers at once. Maybe its part of the plan knowing that limiting it to 10.7 is going to limit the number of users to a gradual adoption vs every mac running icloud at the same time.

[Waragainstsleep]

Originally Posted by Athens 

PS this is why the lounge is dead, good topics like this get transferred out of the lounge.


Another thing to consider like the lack of SIRI support on iPhone 4 could be they dont want every mac and every phone to hit the servers at once. Maybe its part of the plan knowing that limiting it to 10.7 is going to limit the number of users to a gradual adoption vs every mac running icloud at the same time.

This is a very good point, though one would have hoped that Apple would give Snow Leopard the nod over Vista.

[Athens]

why do you continue to bring up Vista?

[Athens]

Lets compare how good a deal this is for Windows users

Windows Vista/Windows 7

Mail - Office 2007 or 2010 (requires outlook) (Purchase)
Contacts - Office 2007 or 2010 (requires outlook) (Purchase)
Calender - Office 2007 or 2010 (requires outlook) (Purchase)
Tasks - Office 2007 or 2010 (requires outlook) (Purchase)
Bookmarks - Safari 5.1.1 or IE 8/9
Photo Stream - Just a download and upload folder


Macintosh

Mail and Notes
Contacts
Calendars
Bookmarks
Photo Stream iPhoto (iLife
Documents & Data (Mac Only) iWorks (Purchase)
Back to My Mac (Mac Only
Find My Mac (Mac Only)

Now for a Windows user that means $199.99 for Office Home and Business because Home and Student does not include Outlook. Wow great deal. And for Mac users the Documents and & Data feature will cost $60 for the Mac, and $30.00 for the iPhone so lets say $90 dollars. Mac version of iCloud includes more options to including Back to my Mac and Find My Mac.


Now lets look at Lion and Snow Leopard and iCloud.

iCloud makes use of Calendar, Contacts, Mail, iPhoto, iWorks. New features in all these programs include the Full Screen work space (Lion Only) and Multi-Touch gestures (Lion Only) Resume (Lion Only) Auto Save (Lion Only) Versions (Lion Only) Quick Add (iCal/Lion Only) so assuming you could drop those apps into Leopard the question is would they work on Snow Leopard which lacks Full Screen Apps, Mulit-Touch, Resume, Auto Save, Versions, Quick Add. If no, all that would have to be added to Snow Leopard OR Apple would have to update the Snow Leopard versions of the Apps to make use of iCloud.

$30.00 for Lion which = iCloud support, another $60 for iWorks. Windows users $199.00 for iCloud support.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna 

Your sarcasm meter is broken.

No, it isn't. It just wasn't very funny.

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna 

APIs have nothing to do with it. Shoehorning iCloud into Snow Leopard isn't any more difficult than shoehorning in the App Store.

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna 

You failed to address my observation that Vista did not require the massive OS rewrite. Adding iCloud to Snow Leopard is no harder than adding it to Vista: that is, not hard at all. Heck, almost everything iCloud does has been done by Apple before in various forms on their older operating systems: contact/calendar syncing, PhotoStream (a rebranded iPhoto sharing), etc. There's nothing really new or hard here, which is why it's so easy to add all this stuff to Vista. All this yapping about "new APIs" is complete nonsense.

I recommend you have a look at the WWDC presentations concerning iCloud and file management. If taking advantage of iCloud were as simple as you suggest, I'd have iCloud-enabled versions of OmniFocus already, for instance. (I don't know how Apple has chosen to implement the iCloud features on Windows, though, so I can't comment on that.) I'm pretty sure Apple could have released some sort of partial iCloud implementation in Snow Leopard. But what would be the point of that? To make a rapidly dwindling number of users happy?

The Mac App Store, by comparison, is much simpler because it does not touch the APIs of existing apps.

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna 

The cheap cost of Lion is irrelevant. Remember the cheap cost of QuickTime Player Pro, and how infuriating that was? Handing over $30 for one feature when I'm gonna replace this computer soon is just stupid.

I think it the costs are very relevant: the upgrade to Lion is very cheap and thus, the barrier to upgrade is very low. It seems to me you're sour that Apple is enticing you to upgrade to Lion after spending $$$ on an iPhone 4S.

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

I think it is. There is not necessarily a relationship between customer satisfaction and profits, particularly when there is little to no competition.

Little to no competition? I didn't realize that Apple had such a commanding lead in the personal computer marketshare arena.

[Waragainstsleep]

Originally Posted by Athens 

why do you continue to bring up Vista?

Is there a reason I shouldn't?

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Athens 

Lets compare how good a deal this is for Windows users

Windows Vista/Windows 7

Mail - Office 2007 or 2010 (requires outlook) (Purchase)
Contacts - Office 2007 or 2010 (requires outlook) (Purchase)
Calender - Office 2007 or 2010 (requires outlook) (Purchase)
Tasks - Office 2007 or 2010 (requires outlook) (Purchase)
Bookmarks - Safari 5.1.1 or IE 8/9
Photo Stream - Just a download and upload folder


Macintosh

Mail and Notes
Contacts
Calendars
Bookmarks
Photo Stream iPhoto (iLife
Documents & Data (Mac Only) iWorks (Purchase)
Back to My Mac (Mac Only
Find My Mac (Mac Only)

Now for a Windows user that means $199.99 for Office Home and Business because Home and Student does not include Outlook. Wow great deal. And for Mac users the Documents and & Data feature will cost $60 for the Mac, and $30.00 for the iPhone so lets say $90 dollars. Mac version of iCloud includes more options to including Back to my Mac and Find My Mac.


Now lets look at Lion and Snow Leopard and iCloud.

iCloud makes use of Calendar, Contacts, Mail, iPhoto, iWorks. New features in all these programs include the Full Screen work space (Lion Only) and Multi-Touch gestures (Lion Only) Resume (Lion Only) Auto Save (Lion Only) Versions (Lion Only) Quick Add (iCal/Lion Only) so assuming you could drop those apps into Leopard the question is would they work on Snow Leopard which lacks Full Screen Apps, Mulit-Touch, Resume, Auto Save, Versions, Quick Add. If no, all that would have to be added to Snow Leopard OR Apple would have to update the Snow Leopard versions of the Apps to make use of iCloud.

$30.00 for Lion which = iCloud support, another $60 for iWorks. Windows users $199.00 for iCloud support.

This is a good analysis, but it seems that a great many Windows users have Office anyway, one way or another.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

Little to no competition? I didn't realize that Apple had such a commanding lead in the personal computer marketshare arena.

Well, a) they are the only makers of OS X, and b) I meant "little to no competition" in terms of quantity of choices. It's Microsoft or Linux, and for most people Linux is not an option.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by Athens 

PS this is why the lounge is dead, good topics like this get transferred out of the lounge.

It's a tech thread concerning OS X, not a Lounge thread. This is a tech forum after all.

[lpkmckenna]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

No, it isn't. It just wasn't very funny.

It wasn't meant to be funny, it was meant to demonstrate that you were wrong: Apple does shoehorn in new features to older operating systems. In fact, they still might add some iCloud features to Snow Leopard:

Rumor: Mac OS X v10.6.9 to bring iCloud support. Which would be very nice. Apple does wake up sometimes, like the QuickTime Pro thing.

I recommend you have a look at the WWDC presentations concerning iCloud and file management. If taking advantage of iCloud were as simple as you suggest, I'd have iCloud-enabled versions of OmniFocus already, for instance. (I don't know how Apple has chosen to implement the iCloud features on Windows, though, so I can't comment on that.)

Yeah, that's the "Documents in the Cloud," which is supported on Lion and iOS, but not on any version of Windows. Most iCloud features are available to Windows users but not that, and if MacRumors is correct, it is probably just those features but not Docs in the Cloud that could make it to Snow Leopard.

I'm pretty sure Apple could have released some sort of partial iCloud implementation in Snow Leopard. But what would be the point of that? To make a rapidly dwindling number of users happy?

How about making their users happy, period? How about a family with an older iMac that can't run Lion and a brand new MacBook that can both being about to sync up, like they could with MobileMe? That's common sense to me. It's better than labelling their users "rapidly dwindling."

I think it the costs are very relevant: the upgrade to Lion is very cheap and thus, the barrier to upgrade is very low. It seems to me you're sour that Apple is enticing you to upgrade to Lion after spending $$$ on an iPhone 4S.

Actually, I'm sour about having to manually type my contacts into my Mac just to keep it in sync with my phone, because apparently Apple can only manage one-way USB syncing. And do you know how tedious it is to go thru every single contact in Address Book, verifying it was the same as my iPhone 3G, before doing the swap from 3G to 4S? It was really, really fncking tedious. That kind of thing just doesn't match any "it just works" philosophy. Especially since every other mobile phone platform can do it. Sour? Who wouldn't be?

[Big Mac]

On the issue of contact syncing, I assume many have problems with keeping their contacts tidy. It's not an easy thing to do, especially when one considers that there are many strategies available to manage contacts, but that flexibility can make management more complicated.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna 

Actually, I'm sour about having to manually type my contacts into my Mac just to keep it in sync with my phone, because apparently Apple can only manage one-way USB syncing. And do you know how tedious it is to go thru every single contact in Address Book, verifying it was the same as my iPhone 3G, before doing the swap from 3G to 4S? It was really, really fncking tedious. That kind of thing just doesn't match any "it just works" philosophy. Especially since every other mobile phone platform can do it. Sour? Who wouldn't be?

Something is wrong with your setup.

The iPhone will happily sync both ways through USB.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

On the issue of contact syncing, I assume many have problems with keeping their contacts tidy. It's not an easy thing to do, especially when one considers that there are many strategies available to manage contacts, but that flexibility can make management more complicated.

I entered my contacts into Address Book *once*, with meticulous care, some ten years ago (before I got my first iSync-able phone).

Lately, I have seen problems with contacts showing up duplicated on the iPhone, one of them without an address, say, or with a contact containing the same street address two or three times in different address fields.

They look fine on the Mac, though.

[Big Mac]

Do you see references to unified contact info? If so, you're seeing duplicates because MobileMe/iCloud has a duplicate set of contacts.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna 

Yeah, that's the "Documents in the Cloud," which is supported on Lion and iOS, but not on any version of Windows. Most iCloud features are available to Windows users but not that, and if MacRumors is correct, it is probably just those features but not Docs in the Cloud that could make it to Snow Leopard.

As I said, Apple could spend time and energy (and perhaps they do, I don't know), but has chosen not to bring out a partial implementation on an old version of their OS.

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna 

How about making their users happy, period? How about a family with an older iMac that can't run Lion and a brand new MacBook that can both being about to sync up, like they could with MobileMe?

Apple has a clear picture of how to make their users happy: make sure users upgrade to Lion and use all of the new features by iCloud. Now I know there are some edge cases where people can't or don't want to upgrade, but Apple does have a very clear idea how to make users happy. The only reason why you're upset is that you can't (or don't want to) update some of your Macs to Lion.

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna 

Actually, I'm sour about having to manually type my contacts into my Mac just to keep it in sync with my phone, because apparently Apple can only manage one-way USB syncing.

I've synced my addresses via iTunes with various iPods (from 2G to 4G touch) and I haven't had a problem. Updates on my iPod touch were synced back properly to my Mac. Now it's even better, because I don't have to manually sync them by plugging it in. I've also synced my contacts to cell phones over the years and things went fine (although some extra spaces in telephone numbers were erased when syncing back).

[lpkmckenna]

I suffered the duplicating contacts problem twice, which swore me off of it forever.

[imitchellg5]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

Certainly, and the same shallow integration could have been done for Snow Leopard, just as they did with the iTunes iCloud implementation.

The end result would have been the same. Someone would have made a thread complaining about how you have to get Lion to take part in the full iCloud experience.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna 

I suffered the duplicating contacts problem twice, which swore me off of it forever.

The entire database?

I'm just seeing it on a very few contacts, and not in Address Book on the Mac.

If you've seen the entire database duplicating on the iPhone, the usual cause is having both MobileMe AND USB syncing on at the same time.

[Athens]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

It's a tech thread concerning OS X, not a Lounge thread. This is a tech forum after all.

I wouldn't consider bitching about having to buy lion to get icloud a tech thread but a discussion thread. A tech thread would be more like Will my computer work with lion. Just my opinion. I see little tech merit in the thread and more conversational merit.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Athens 

I wouldn't consider bitching about having to buy lion to get icloud a tech thread but a discussion thread. A tech thread would be more like Will my computer work with lion. Just my opinion. I see little tech merit in the thread and more conversational merit.

Does it really matter?

It's funny to me how some people complain about this place being such a small forum and then are so picky about these sort of pretty inconsequential things. No offense, just saying.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

The end result would have been the same. Someone would have made a thread complaining about how you have to get Lion to take part in the full iCloud experience.

Yup, but at least Windows wouldn't end up looking more future proofed. Shallow integration iCloud can run on a 10 year old Windows PC.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

Yup, but at least Windows wouldn't end up looking more future proofed. Shallow integration iCloud can run on a 10 year old Windows PC.

Heh. Vista can't run on a ten-year-old PC.

[Big Mac]

I'm not so sure about that. There were P4s om 2001 that exceeded these specs.

[Athens]

Windows is more future proof because its not ever going to be cutting edge. There is a reason why 99% of all software on Windows is developed for XP as a base line and why XP is still the largest used Windows. About the only thing not compatible with XP these days is games built on Directx 10 and 11. In fact the only company that is really limiting software to Vista and Windows 7 is Microsoft as it tries to kill Windows XP. The newest version of Windows Live wont work on XP. And they specifically did not release directx 10 and 11 for XP to force people to upgrade.

The compatibility of Vista and Windows 7 is also why the operating systems are so damn bloated, speed and disk space wise. Both consume over 10GB of space just to maintain compatibility and stability is also a issue. About the only time I see windows Vista and 7 crash is with legacy old software running in compatibility mode. Its a pretty big price to pay for compatibility.

[Athens]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

I'm not so sure about that. There were P4s om 2001 that exceeded these specs.

A P4 can't run Windows Vista. It can hardly run Windows XP SP3, ok technically it physically can but its the type of experience you will want to shoot the computer after waiting 20 minutes for it to do something simple.

A ghz isnt a ghz.

Example

PassMark - Intel Pentium 4 2.80GHz - Price performance comparison

P4 2.8ghz gets a score of "416" points vs a Core2 T6600 gets a score of "1549" points

PassMark - Intel Core2 Duo T6600 @ 2.20GHz - Price performance comparison

A PIII at 1.2Ghz scores a amazing 300 points

PassMark - Intel Pentium III - S 1266MHz - Price performance comparison

And top of the line Core i7's score over 10 000 points.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by Athens 

Windows is more future proof because its not ever going to be cutting edge.

That doesn't make any sense: they're more future-proof, because Windows' evolution is slower? Quite the contrary, it's the best way to go extinct, something that MS experiences now. They haven't successfully entered a new market apart from perhaps XBox (after losing a lot of money in the process).

When they will finally release Windows 8 (which I hear is slated for 2012), Apple and probably also Google will have released its third major update to iOS on the tablet. Ditto for Windows Phone: when MS releases Windows Phone 8, it will have to compete against iOS 6 and Android 5 (or whatever Google decides to call its next incarnation of Android).

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

I'm not so sure about that. There were P4s om 2001 that exceeded these specs.

The question is not if you can run Windows 7 or Vista on such an old machine, but would you want to?

[Wiskedjak]

The experience would indeed suck. That's not the point. The point is that, if the user is willing to accept a low level of Windows performance in exchange for not having to buy a new computer, the Windows version of iCloud will indeed run on a 10yr old PC. Microsoft lets the *customer* decide what is acceptable performance.

And, it runs *more* than acceptably on my 7yr old PC.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by Athens 

Windows is more future proof because its not ever going to be cutting edge.

Many people are willing to accept a not-cutting-edge OS (Vista), as long as it can run the cutting edge software (iCloud). In fact, many people don't even *want* the cutting edge OS (just look at the people who don't want to upgrade to Lion).

[Athens]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

That doesn't make any sense: they're more future-proof, because Windows' evolution is slower? Quite the contrary, it's the best way to go extinct, something that MS experiences now. They haven't successfully entered a new market apart from perhaps XBox (after losing a lot of money in the process).

When they will finally release Windows 8 (which I hear is slated for 2012), Apple and probably also Google will have released its third major update to iOS on the tablet. Ditto for Windows Phone: when MS releases Windows Phone 8, it will have to compete against iOS 6 and Android 5 (or whatever Google decides to call its next incarnation of Android).

I disagree, and I'll try and explain why. Apple is cutting edge. That has always been the case. They have always had a short technology update life cycle and at the same time long lived machines. Being in the Apple Camp means new computers every 3 years and new devices every 2 years to be current with the technology. You also have to accept that after 3 years your left in the cold for new stuff. Thats part of being cutting edge, dumping the old going with the new.

Windows on the other hand has been more slower to adapt and slower to radicle change. And the first attempt of a major change and to be "cutting edge" blew up in their face with Vista. Anyways the mobile market is not the same as the desktop market, the future proofing of a PC vs a mobile device is totally different.

[Waragainstsleep]

Your mostly right except Vista didn't fail because it was a radical change, Win 7 is very similar after all. Vista failed because they screwed it up. The perpetually delayed Longhorn was eventually canned altogether, they started from scratch and after missing more deadlines, they rushed a release of a shoddy unfinished product and it bit a big chunk out of their ass.

[OreoCookie]

You are right that Microsoft places a lot more emphasis on backwards compatibility and that Apple is stricter when it comes to supported configurations. Back in the earlier days of OS X, there were quite a few hacks that allowed people whose Macs were considered to slow by Apple to run the latest piece of Apple software or the latest reincarnation of OS X.

Being able to use an older machine for longer doesn't have anything to do with being future-proof, though: a 10-year old machine won't allow you to play HD h.264 videos without stuttering, they will ache if you launch Lightroom (there is no Aperture for Windows) and try to edit 500 25 MB RAW files from the wedding you've just shot. If all you want to do is run an ancient OS (e. g. Windows XP which was released in the same year as OS X 10.0) and write some letters and e-mails, an old machine is fine. But then the old machine is fine, because it is powerful enough for what you do. By the same token, you could stay with a lampshade iMac and 10.4, for instance. You also don't benefit from all of the new technologies introduced with Windows Vista and Windows 7 if your machine is not up to snuff.

I do disagree, however, with the timescales you mention, though:

Originally Posted by Athens 

I disagree, and I'll try and explain why. Apple is cutting edge. That has always been the case. They have always had a short technology update life cycle and at the same time long lived machines. Being in the Apple Camp means new computers every 3 years and new devices every 2 years to be current with the technology.

No, the progress and update cycle is the same no matter if you use a Mac or Windows, Moore's law holds for both of them. They use the same cpus after the Intel-switch. I don't know why you think people upgrade their Macs every 3 years on average, that's not my experience. For me, it's more like ~4 years which is normal comparable to the update cycle in the PC world.

The 2-year cycle with the iPhone (I suppose you're referring to the iPhone, because in my experience, people keep their iPods until they break) has nothing to do with Apple being special, that's due to the two-year contracts people usually enter with the carriers.

Originally Posted by Athens 

You also have to accept that after 3 years your left in the cold for new stuff. Thats part of being cutting edge, dumping the old going with the new.

My previous machine, a first-gen 15" MacBook Pro supports all OS up to and including 10.6. Which means I was cut off with Lion, 5 years after the release of my machine (I had to upgrade in 2010, the screen died after I spilled apple juice over the keyboard).

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

I don't know about the overall timeline, but you can't say that because 10.6 provided no new features that Apple gets a freebie in terms of not counting as a supported OS.

You're kind of right, but it brought virtually nothing new to the table that would have been of any relevance to PPC machine owners.

Except for security-related developments (AFAIK), the first relevant advances that weren't optimizations and future-proofed rewrites came in 10.7.

Of course, Apple very deliberately made it look that way, specifically to alleviate the G5 users' feelings of having got ****ed over, while hastening the Intel adoption and increasing the performance discrepancy between the platforms.

[lpkmckenna]

Well I upgraded to the new MBP, so you won't hear me b!tch about iCloud anymore. Using Lion is giving me new reasons to complain, however.

[Salty]

You guys realize that Apple doesn't want Vista users to upgrade to 7 right? They have no reason to incentivize people moving from Vista to 7. It's also not nearly as easy as the upgrade to Lion.

Also the vast majority of people who are going to sign up for iCloud are wanting something new, so they're gonna want Lion.

Also if Lion breaks your work flow, iCloud might too! You guys seem to just wanna bitch about stuff because you feel entitled. iCloud is a free service, stop bitching.

[lpkmckenna]

You guys seem to just wanna bitch about stuff because you feel entitled.

I'm really getting tired of people using the word "entitled" in this way. We hear a relentless drone about how everyone from bankers to OWS to tech enthusiasts to films stars are blinded by their "sense of entitlement." Anyone complains about anything, they're dismissed because they "feel entitled." As if that explains anything.

Guess what: people complain when they aren't treated very good. When Windows users are treated better than Mac users, I'm gonna complain, because I expect to be treated at least as well as they are. That's not entitlement, that's being fair. And frankly, being merely fair isn't much when we're talking about purchasers of Apple's most expensive products. Or does the privilege of paying $30 just to be treated as well as Vista users sound "fair" to you?

I'm lucky enough that buying a new computer was possible for me. I didn't have to save for months. But if I did save for months, knowing that I would have to lay out an unnecessary $30 in the interim just to access a "free service" to sync mail, contacts, and calendars - which every other smartphone platform does for free - is a slap in the face.

Just admit the obvious: Apple screws up sometimes, and this is one of those times.

[Spheric Harlot]

"Screws up" implies that they didn't think it through.

This is the complete opposite: they know *exactly* what they're doing and think this is best for them.

They're probably right, like it or not.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna 

I'm really getting tired of people using the word "entitled" in this way. We hear a relentless drone about how everyone from bankers to OWS to tech enthusiasts to films stars are blinded by their "sense of entitlement." Anyone complains about anything, they're dismissed because they "feel entitled." As if that explains anything. :roll eyes:

As consumers, we *are* entitled to certain expectations from the products we choose to support.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

"Screws up" implies that they didn't think it through.

This is the complete opposite: they know *exactly* what they're doing and think this is best for them.

They're probably right, like it or not.

I agree. I just think it's sad that they need to resort to withholding features from a prior OS, features that could in all likelihood easily run on that OS, in order to encourage adoption of the newest OS. It suggests that the newest OS doesn't really have all that much to allow it to stand on it's own.

[Spheric Harlot]

And we're full circle.

You don't know how trivial or difficult it would be to implement on a pre-Lion OS.

All we know about iCloud is probably just the beginning. Windows support is bound to be just a fraction of what will be possible on Macs due to new APIs (see previous point). This is speculation.

The latest computers not upgradable to Lion are Mac minis sold in 2007. Why the **** should Apple care to expend resources on adding a possibly crippled (due to lack of the new APIs) version of a fledgling service to machines older than four and a half years?

MobileMe will continue to run another eight months. the last laptop not to be upgradable will then be almost six years old. The last desktop, five years old. What exactly ARE your expectations?

[Wiskedjak]

APIs are just lines of code. You can add an updated API to almost any other code base. That's the point of using APIs. They offer an easy way to connect different systems with minimal updates.

[Spheric Harlot]

I'm no programmer, but my understanding is that the point of APIs is to offer an easy way FOR APPLICATIONS (such as third-party software) to connect to different systems with minimal updates.

Its specifications define that it doesn't change (much) system-to-system ON THE OUTSIDE.

The API subsystem ITSELF ties very deeply directly into the guts of the system.

I cannot imagine that adding an entire API to an operating system is in any way a trivial task.

Repurposing a development team to retroactively add one to an obsolete OS, just to support computers sold more than five years ago seems like complete insanity to me.

[besson3c]

There are two different categories of support here, I think Spheric...

1) Establishing new APIs that allow tight integration with apps and establish new protocols where none existed before. The iPhoto photo stream is probably an example of this

2) Piggybacking on existing infrastructure for offering iCloud integration using existing protocols


Apple probably supported Vista/Win 7 by using whatever Outlook uses to publish contacts and calendar items to iCloud, and maybe setup the photo sharing as some sort of network disk or whatever, probably WebDAV based.

It is probably true that Apple wanted to implement much lower level APIs in Lion, but they could have decided to integrate iCloud the same way they did Vista/Win 7 in older versions of OS X via tweaking Address Book to publish to iCloud, allowing iCal to define iCloud as a CalDAV server, whatever. They would have had more to support and develop this way, but they could have technically speaking. That they didn't does not make customers running older OSes happy, as they have every right to be, as nobody feels good feeling forced to pay to upgrade to something to stay in "still supports all the bells and whistles" computing status which people who bought machines that shipped with Snow Leopard days/weeks before Lion was released felt at the time and should still feel now.

There is a disconnect going on here though, I think...

People like Spheric are assuming the role of armchair Apple management, explaining and defending Apple's rationale so that those who feel that Apple has been unfair to them feel otherwise, I guess so that they aren't left pissed off at Apple, or else just for fun. I don't mean this in a derogatory way (although I don't really understand the need to defend Apple at seemingly very turn, maybe it's vestige of Apple's underdoggy past?), somebody has to assume this vantage point in order to really have this conversation and get into the fairness of all of this.

Others are assuming the role of the customer and what seems reasonable to them to expect from any computer/software/IT company, be it Apple or anybody else. Their vantage point is not particularly empathetic to the difficulties of backporting iCloud support, the business strategy of not doing so, the logistics behind supporting this, whatever, they are simply looking at the bottom line what-does-this-mean-to-customers, and they don't really care about the other stuff.

I'd say that both sides have valid points, but at the end of the day I'm far more empathetic to the latter because Apple and companies like them need customer pushback so that they aren't left to constantly redefine boundaries solely as per their convenience and profit motive. Apple has had a history of challenging these boundaries, so it is perfectly rational to see this this way.

All of this may be moot though, Apple may have gone this direction simply to ramp up iCloud traffic in a more measured fashion rather than making it a massive cluster****. It is possible that they will still backport some support to these older OSes.

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

APIs are just lines of code. You can add an updated API to almost any other code base. That's the point of using APIs. They offer an easy way to connect different systems with minimal updates.

Please go take a computer science course or something...



OS X is also just lines of code, it should be trivial to implement any new feature we can imagine! Hell, those who are unhappy with Apple can and should just go build their own, new, perfect OS from scratch! That'll show Apple! How hard could it be, anyway?



Seriously, though. The point of APIs is to provide a standard, stable interface that allows programmers to integrate your features into their products (in this case it's internal APIs, and it's only Apple's programmers, but the general statement holds). The API that is exposed to the programmer is (typically, and hopefully) very simple; this does not mean that the underlying code is not incredibly complex.

For reference, here's a popular and commonly used project that's used to build web-based RESTful APIs with a Django backend: https://bitbucket.org/jespern/django-piston/wiki/Home

The API itself might be simple, but it's just an interface to the code that does the actual work.

[Athens]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

APIs are just lines of code. You can add an updated API to almost any other code base. That's the point of using APIs. They offer an easy way to connect different systems with minimal updates.

And thats how functions get broken and software ends up being 4.1 only but not 4.0 or 3 and so on. API's are not designed to be changed every 5 months on a whim.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by Athens 

And thats how functions get broken and software ends up being 4.1 only but not 4.0 or 3 and so on. API's are not designed to be changed every 5 months on a whim.

That wasn't the point of this sideline.

The point was that Wiskedjak apparently has no idea what APIs actually do and implied that it would be trivial, or at least feasible ("just lines of code"), to add an entire API to an obsolete system relegated to minimal life-support status WRT development effort.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

People like Spheric are assuming the role of armchair Apple management, explaining and defending Apple's rationale so that those who feel that Apple has been unfair to them feel otherwise, I guess so that they aren't left pissed off at Apple, or else just for fun. I don't mean this in a derogatory way (although I don't really understand the need to defend Apple at seemingly very turn, maybe it's vestige of Apple's underdoggy past?), somebody has to assume this vantage point in order to really have this conversation and get into the fairness of all of this.

I know people love to paint me into the Apple-apologist corner for believing that Apple actually know exactly what they're doing, and usually have good reasons for doing so.

But I'm primarily a customer.

My Mac mini is six years old; my MacBook was retired after 4.5 years of constant use and replaced by a MacBook Pro this spring.

I would much rather Apple spend their time and effort on improving current products than try and appease every moron desperately trying to keep his half-decade old hardware running every latest software feature well into the next century. Sorry.

There are things that really piss me off in Apple software that I'd MUCH rather see fixed than to have full iCloud and iTunes Match support on my G4 mini, and if Apple has to divert effort from those just to appease the people who think they still haven't got their money's worth on a college investment, then I'd really rather they didn't.

I've been using Apple stuff for over 22 years now, and all I can see is that Apple's business decisions over the past fifteen years have resulted in the most awesome products of theirs I've yet to use.

If that's apologism, well, yeah, I guess I'm an apologist.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

That wasn't the point of this sideline.

The point was that Wiskedjak apparently has no idea what APIs actually do and implied that it would be trivial, or at least feasible ("just lines of code"), to add an entire API to an obsolete system relegated to minimal life-support status WRT development effort.

I have a fairly solid understanding of how APIs work; the developers I work with are integrating them into our applications all the time.