apple's prisoner ?
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| skai Apr 13, 2010 5:53 AM EDT |
It's a GREAT feat to enable linux users to connect to their iThings without the need to jailbreak them. But one thing in the article is a nonsense : the author feels being Apple's prisoner. This is true with any single apple product. If you don't like that idea, don't buy apple products. And stop buzzing about the fact that white headphones are so much better than any other just because Cupertino decided the colour. What I mean is : other products are just as fine as any icrap. It's up to anyone to choose depending on many factors, open and standard compliant is the main afaik. |
| r_a_trip Apr 13, 2010 9:30 AM EDT |
Skai, you've got it spot on, but you forget one very big factor with Apple kit. Apple doesn't only sell hard- and software, they also sell the illusion of "cool, hip & trendy". I suspect a lot of Apple users follow Apple and their kit, not because they cannot get any better anywhere else, but they fancy the idea that they themselves become "cool, hip & trendy" by surrounding themselves with Apple kit. My reaction to that is: "Put a monkey in a suit..." Then again, maybe I'm unqualified to make that assessment as I like bang for the buck. Looks only need to be acceptable, functionality is key. |
| azerthoth Apr 13, 2010 10:02 AM EDT |
*note* if you feel the iPrisoner stress, you should probably not buy their products. Or in other words dont be a [censored][censored][censored] moron. |
| dinotrac Apr 13, 2010 10:10 AM EDT |
I would disagree on only one point: Apple stuff is cool in part because it tends to work pretty well for a lot of people. My wife is presently struggling with an 8G Sansa mp3 player that isn't quite doing the job of replacing her old 1st generation iPod nano. iTunes was a serious pain in the pack animal for us to get working properly with all 4 (4!!) of the iPods we have (not a one of them is mine, and two of them were gifts), but she knows how to use it. Sigh. I even liked the Mac OSX server I worked with back in the fall, although it's method for auto-starting tasks is decidedly foreign. Being held captive is actually a reason to buy Apple -- their stuff works best when it works their way. If you don't want to be a "prisoner" -- and you're not because you made the choice and you can make the choice to go elsewhere -- don't buy Apple. |
| Steven_Rosenber Apr 13, 2010 11:01 AM EDT |
I've been considering a Sansa Clip+, and it's worrying to hear about this and other problems with the players. If they could manage to sell them for more $30, less $50/$60, I'd feel better about it. |
| dinotrac Apr 13, 2010 11:04 AM EDT |
Steve -- I'm not much of an mp3 guy myself -- don't like walking around with those stupid buds in my ears, but I don't know if the problem is with the Sansa or the iPod. My wife actually inherited the Sansa from our son-in-law, who received (somewhat grudgingly, I might add) an iPod for Christmas from my happy Apple prisoner daughter. Danny (SIL) liked the Sansa just fine, is not presently thrilled with the iPod. |
| Steven_Rosenber Apr 13, 2010 11:19 AM EDT |
I'm using this el-cheapo Centron Craze 4 GB player. It cost $20, I think. User interface is terrible (too-small buttons, poor documentation - though I finally do have everything figured out, doesn't remember where you left off in more than one file at a time), but sound is great, portability excellent (about the size of a Bic lighter), and it plays MP3, WAV and Ogg - so I'm ripping lots of discs to Ogg and trying to get ogg podcast feeds (I use gPodder to manage podcasts on the player). It also has a strange habit of presenting ogg files out of order - meaning full albums play in some strange sequence whose logic I can't figure out. (MP3s play in the proper order.) It won't play Flac, so that's why I'm looking at the Sansa - that and the promise of better UI. What's great is that the system sees it as a USB flash drive, so it's easy to manage it from multiple applications ... although FreeBSD refuses to mount it, and trying to do so freezes the console. In Windows, I get complaints from the system about being unable to properly "close" the player, and the permissions look like read only. Everything does work in Windows. It used to work perfectly in Linux, especially Debian Lenny. Kind of funny, no? Linux offers the best compatibility. I have yet to try it in the Ubuntu Lucid beta, which I'm running now. |
| herzeleid Apr 13, 2010 12:00 PM EDT |
I like the sansa gear too - works fine in linux, shows up as a usb drive, as mentioned. Just drag and drop mp3s into the "MUSIC" folder and then "safely remove" the device. |
| jdixon Apr 13, 2010 12:34 PM EDT |
> My reaction to that is: "Put a monkey in a suit..." And the next thing you know he's CEO of a fortune 500 company. |
| lth Apr 13, 2010 1:48 PM EDT |
I use a Sansa Clip+. I agree with herzeleid, just drag and drop. I have put a few audio books on it and it works well. I use PCLinuxOS and it sees it fine. |
| Steven_Rosenber Apr 13, 2010 3:49 PM EDT |
I'll be looking for deals on the Sansa Clip+ - thanks for your comments. I'm no audiophile, but the Oggs I've been making from CDs have been sounding pretty good. I don't know if Flac is all that necessary, but I've been trying to figure out the best format for long-term use. |
| tuxchick Apr 13, 2010 4:54 PM EDT |
Quoting: I've been trying to figure out the best format for long-term use. Keep your high-quality masters archived in WAV or FLAC, and then you can generate any number of lesser-quality files from those. |
| moopst Apr 13, 2010 5:37 PM EDT |
My brother in law is an artist - not a techy so naturally he was drawn to Apple. He recorded my nephew using Garage Band and saved the files in Apples format. When his laptop got stolen he hooked his iPod up to the new laptop to sync it up. He says a message poped up saying something like "Would you like to use this computer for iTunes" to which he replied "Yes". I don't know if it said he would lose everything he has or if he didn't read all the fine print but he lost the ability to read his old files. I think rather than try to unlock them he deleted them all so no more Sean's first words and such. Nice move Apple. |
| Sander_Marechal Apr 13, 2010 6:19 PM EDT |
Quoting:I don't know if Flac is all that necessary, but I've been trying to figure out the best format for long-term use. I agree with TC here. FLAC or WAV. Or any lossless format. Don't use lossy formats for long-term storage. Ever. This includes not using JPEG and JPEG2000 for your photos! Better save them as RAW or PNG or something. |
| Steven_Rosenber Apr 13, 2010 6:20 PM EDT |
How does Flac handle metadata? I think that might be a reason to use it over WAV - so you can get artist/title/album information embedded in the file. |
| Sander_Marechal Apr 14, 2010 3:56 AM EDT |
FLAC supports Metadata and Cue files. |
| chalbersma Apr 14, 2010 10:47 PM EDT |
Quoting: What's great is that the system sees it as a USB flash drive, so it's easy to manage it from multiple applications ... although FreeBSD refuses to mount it, and trying to do so freezes the console. In Windows, I get complaints from the system about being unable to properly "close" the player, and the permissions look like read only. Everything does work in Windows. I've had this problem before. Give me a dmesg | tail after you plug in the device. I'm willing to bet it's a partition logic thing. Try mounting as > sudo mount_msdosfs /dev/sda1 instead of > sudo mount_msdosfs /dev/sda0 or maybe perhaps > sudo mount_msdosfs /dev/sda |
| Steven_Rosenber Apr 14, 2010 11:17 PM EDT |
You can't get a dmesg - if you plug it in and boot in FreeBSD, the boot process stops at da0 and doesn't assign any further device name(s). Once you unplug the USB device, the boot process continues with complaints about umass ... Now that I blew FreeBSD off the box, I can't repeat the test. I tried to use the GhostBSD GNOME live CD, but it wouldn't boot at all, with nothing plugged in ... I should try it in OpenBSD just for laughs ... |
| gus3 Apr 14, 2010 11:25 PM EDT |
Quoting:I should try it in OpenBSD just for laughs ...Okay, but who will be laughing at whom? |
| Steven_Rosenber Apr 15, 2010 12:47 AM EDT |
If Flash wasn't an issue (Flash 7 in Opera on i386 is as far as you can go), I'd be Mr. OpenBSD. |
| gus3 Apr 15, 2010 1:21 AM EDT |
Is that Opera built for OpenBSD, or built for Linux and running on OpenBSD with kern.emul.linux=1 ? http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq9.html#Interact EDIT: Never mind. There is no Opera built for any BSD; Linux emulation is required for all x86 *BSD platforms. |
| chalbersma Apr 15, 2010 6:57 PM EDT |
PCBSD has Flash 10 running in Opera out of the box. |
| Steven_Rosenber Apr 15, 2010 7:29 PM EDT |
I'll get around to running PC-BSD - I don't think the live environment lets you install any applications to check them out before you commit to a full install. Re: OpenBSD - yep, Opera is in Linux emulation mode. I think that Opera does a build for FreeBSD, but the Flash plugin is still the Linux version running under emulation. While I was happy to have Flash 9 in FreeBSD 7.3-release (I don't know if you can get Flash 10 in anything less than FBSD 8.0), it ate CPU like crazy, was loathe to give up said eating, and the video was pretty choppy. But at least you can get Flash 9/10 ... I just wish performance was better. |
| chalbersma Apr 15, 2010 9:06 PM EDT |
Ya BSD needs a native flash plugin. |
| Steven_Rosenber Apr 15, 2010 11:17 PM EDT |
Won't get it ... that's the pain of closed-source, single-source code. |
| gus3 Apr 15, 2010 11:43 PM EDT |
Quoting:Ya BSD needs a native flash plugin.BSDash? |
| hkwint Apr 16, 2010 10:53 AM EDT |
Adobe doesn't listen to 8000 of their custormers: http://www.petitiononline.com/flash4me/petition.html |
| Steven_Rosenber Apr 16, 2010 3:54 PM EDT |
I think there's an evil Nvidia driver for 64-bit FreeBSD - so not every company that loves proprietary code is against releasing a binary for FreeBSD. OpenBSD wouldn't include it, of course, because they're against closed-source binaries. |
| chalbersma Apr 18, 2010 2:50 AM EDT |
It's one of the big reason's I'm pulling for HTML5 adoption. |
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