Briefly: No Apple products in Gates household; iPad in Hollywood; lawsuit update - Page 2

with the current system you can patent just about anything. eg, more than 2 fingers on a touchscreen...

So short-sighted if true. I remember Apple's computers' being praised by PC World as great machines on which to run Windows (since, you know, they're great machines). He should at least give his OS a fighting chance.

It's also a great, Orwellian rewrite of history, of course, since Microsoft owes its early success to selling Apple software.

You should read the countless threads about the three or four day conference where google executives did nothing but bash Apple and make false predictions of their demise. Sure Steve could have ignored them, but he chose to gloat, which is ok to. To pretend he is somehow unique in this behavior is simply dishonest.

exactly. even if you hate apples OS(s), apple is a hardware company - and that shows - at the least he could set windows as the primary/default OS on a MBP.

As a parent I can tell you that their prohibition is the surest way to guarantee that their kids will get Apple products as soon as they get out of that house. Wouldn't surprise me if one of his kids ends up working at Apple just to rebel against or differentiate him-herself from the father.

wow.. i was just about to post something similar!

Clearly someone that doesn't work in the industry. It is actually very rare for any company to pay for placement on a tv show or movie. At least in terms of cash money.

What they will do is make deals to provide materials and permission to use them without covering up decals, faking screen contents etc for free. This allows the production company to have what it needs without paying out money for the physical item or image use licenses (which can be very very expensive) and the other side gets the 'free advertising'.

With TV shows, companies like Apple used to just send a handful of whatever to each of the various studio prop houses on the idea that when companies go to see what they have around to use they would see it and be like "its here, lets use it". Often it was items that were clearly recognizable as whatever even if you covered the logo and never showed the screen, like the old bondi series imacs and ibooks.

Cars and clothing are two major companies (aside from electronics) that will free for free. The old WB show Dawson's Creek is still talked around town for making a deal to dress all their kids in the same company, getting the clothes for free or extremely reduced prices. CSI etc all drive the same dark SUVs cause they are getting huge discounts (up to 100%). Even sunglass companies will send samples to certain shows so that someone like David Caruso (famous for his character's sunglasses schtick) will be seen where X brand)

Movies run the same way. Free For Free is a common way to reduce budgets for cars, clothes, computers, even sometimes food and drink. Sometimes that neighborhood hot spot will be more than happy to be used in the new Jolie (or whomever) film for a pittance fee to cover the electric bill during filming. Productions love that kind of gig because it adds to the realism. I mean you can't say that the movie wasn't shot in Chicago when the leads are having a drink at THE bar.

Very rarely is product placement actually a cash payment. when it is, it is typically something very common place that has no real budget advantage (like you notice that 'everyone' in a movie is drinking pepsi even if the can is covered up) and no real reason plot wise to have everything the same.

oh thanx! I'm on XP, and IE7 doesn't spell check.

Totally agree.

I fail to understand why people think that Bill Gates throwing his money around equates to him being a "decent guy" now. People don't just up and change their entire personalities, and if he was always a "nice guy" he wouldn't have done all that stuff that his career at Microsoft is based on. If he cared about people so much, Microsoft wouldn't have been one of the most ruthless, backstabbing, winner-take-all kind of business outfit that it is clearly recorded as being.

It just makes no kind of sense to suppose that the head of *that* business, is suddenly a "nice guy philanthropist" now because he just cares so damn much about everyone. Total nonsense.

There are plenty of examples throughout history where people regretted their actions and changed their goals and motives, seemingly overnight.

Looks like Paul Allen is in need of money to buy yet another flailing sports franchise, seeing as how his Microsoft stocks have sunk like a diving bell.

I have noticed them also. ANd thus far only being used in ways that are actually within the realm of real. Like over the weekend, I was watching one of those police shows and they were viewing security footage on an ipad. And no "okay zoom and enhance, now spin it to a side with no actual camera and show me that view" tricks.


No WE don't ALL KNOW they will.

Apple has given a clearly thought out logic to locking down iOS, that many folks accept as logical and sensible. The same arguments don't apply to Mac OS which is why Apple hasn't made them.

So unless you are willing to step up and state on the record that you work for Apple and have actual insider info that yes they are locking down Mac OS (with your full name and position in the company so we can verify your info), keep your 'the sky is falling' to yourself please. Don't speak for the rest of us and what we know or think. It's tacky.

whats stopping you from using chrome? or at least IE8?

They were scarcely "rants." Do you even know what the word means?

Knowing all the businesses (and their employees) that MS put out of work over the years using illegal business practices, I wouldn't be proud of a parent who did that and wouldn't think it was cool.

Apple has been locking in more and more for almost a decade now. And see what pinnacles of success it got them to. What makes you think they would change that m.o.? There's no incentive from Apple's point of view in that.

Of course Micro$haft thought the same thing at one time... They in fact still do.

Every Christmas for the last 7 years.. Steve Jobs has personally addressed a small package with a current generation iPod for each of the Gates children.. no return address.. no identifying marks...and puts it in the mail by December 1st.

And each Christmas morning... as the box is torn open a raging father grabs up the gifts.. and stops them into the floor while screaming 'no no no no no no no!'.

This has ruined Christmas for the last time. This year... Steve has mailed them a simple Job Offer letter. Each child (once 18) is entitled to a Dollar a year from Apple... an employee name badge... no benefits.. but a shiny new iPod each time one is released. All they have to do is sign.

Should make for a great home movie....

[QUOTE=AppleInsider;1740797]Rumors that Bill Gates secretly uses a MacBook are not true, as Apple products never breach his doorstep, according to his wife.
Apple products in Gates household

"There are very few things that are on the banned list in our household," she said. "But iPods and iPhones are two things we don't get for our kids."
***
So Bill & Melinda are DELIBERATELY HANDICAPPING THEIR KIDS LEARNING & social abilities by restricting them to using the Yugos? I think money has severely warped the parents "vision".

Unless those kids become virtual rich drunken slobs that never work, they had better know the popular top of the line tools or they will be severely disabled at work. If they follow their father into software, they damned well better be proficient in reverse engineering the best products so they can copy them...like their father did.

The concept of brand loyalty trumping capability, reliability and performance that is sorely needed in a tool is almost beyond comprehension.

I use nothing the but highest quality most reliable laptop I can get so I don't have to buy and carry two laptops. Even the $6500 Dell Precision M6500 can't do what the MacBook Pro does, which is let me run OSX & Win7 native.

Sheesh!

Proceedures and security. Gov

I'll bet you that Steve Jobs doesn't have any type of rule preventing his kids from getting a Zune, or any other lame product from Microsoft.

Thompson

What do you get when you don't use competitive products? The Zune, The Kin, and Windows.

I'd hate to be Bill's Kid

Your not aloud Google Chrome, but you can still post on AI from work

What does "when Apple locks down Mac OS X" even mean?

Thompson

According to the interweb.. this isn't new news...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,504104,00.html

2009

Could you list them?

I would contend that Boot Camp, iTunes, FileMaker, Quicktime, Time Capsule, Safari, AirPort Extreme and AirPort Express are evidence to the contrary. Some are even free and/or cross-platfom for the same price.

In particular, consider

Quote:

MobileMe on your PC.
Imagine running beautifully designed, easy-to-use Apple applications on your PC. With MobileMe, you can check your email, manage your contacts and calendar, share photos, and store documents using a full suite of intuitive and clutter-free web apps accessible at me.com.

PC to PC. PC to Mac.
If you have more than one PC, use MobileMe to keep email, contacts, calendars, and bookmarks the same on all of them. If you have a Mac and a PC, they can share the same information. Just enable MobileMe sync on any computer you want to keep up to date.

Microsoft Windows and Outlook friendly.
On a PC, MobileMe works with the applications you use every day, like Outlook 2007 or 2010 (32-bit).* MobileMe keeps your email, contacts, and calendars and even your Internet Explorer or Safari bookmarks in sync with your other computers, iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

Easy setup with the Windows Control Panel.
Setting up MobileMe to sync with your PC is simple. Just make sure you have the latest version of iTunes and then install the MobileMe Control Panel. Sign in with your MobileMe member name and password, and all of your settings are right there.

http://www.apple.com/mobileme/features/pc.html

What's in your list?

According to a coworker, who has a relative who works for MS, there are quite a few things MS employees are not allowed to have in their homes (this came up during a discussion about TiVo's, which are one of the "banned" devices for MS employees). When I asked how a private company can police what it's employees have in their own homes, she just said they don't dare risk it.


But if that's the only place casual users go to get software, and if that software is limited by Apple's Developer's Agreement, then most users will settle for the limited software and not enough users will go find and buy better software that's available outside the App Store. Those developers will eventually go out of business and all you'll be left with is applications that meet the strick App Store guidelines.

So even if Apple doesn't force use of the App Store, the net effect will be to give applications that Apple "approves" a considerable advantage over those applications that may be better, but don't meet what are sometimes very arbitrary guidelines set by Apple.

See this article for a list of some of the App Store guidelines that are cause for concern. My favorite is: "Apps that duplicate apps already in the App Store may be rejected, particularly if there are many of them." Great if you are talking about fart apps. But if my app does something that other apps already do, even if it does it better or cheaper than other apps, Apple could reject it simply because it was the 11th instead of the 10th app that does that function? That's a pretty big disincentive for developers to work on applications. Why would you invest in developing an app if Apple can sumarily reject it after you've invested your time and money creating it for something as vague as that?

fixed.

You make a very good point..... I have nothing but Macs in my house except for my 14 year old son's Win 7 desktop. I have been pushing Apple products on him since birth! Well...almost and he loves his Win 7 desktop....I think just to be different than dad to have his own space so to speak. But he does LOVE his iPad to carry around everywhere he goes! :-)

Why is this even a story? Does anyone pretend for even a minute that Steve Jobs has any PCs in his home?

On average it just doesn't happen though. Especially with things like your moral compass, it's basically set by age 6 and rarely if ever does anyone wake up one morning and be a completely different person than they were yesterday.

People often have regrets and try to "buy their way into heaven" though through later actions that they hope will tip some mystical balance beam in their favour. It's much more likely that Gates is involved in that, than it is he had some kind of non-religious revelation that he has to be "good" now.

he does. or at least, he did. and he certainly doesn't stop his children from owning MS products.

what a sore loser

This just in...Steve Jobs doesn't use a Windows 7 machine.

I've never seen "allowed" spelled that way. Gawd, you guys are stupid.

Why not get a headstart and jump on the Win7 and Zune bandwagon now while you can?


Not only does the marketing not work well for them - they were not able to assemble enough clearly superior features or ecosystem (as witnessed by all the "Zune doesn't suck" and "I love the hardware sleekness and the squirty social aspects of my Zune" in other commentary previously). To compete with a solid ecosystem like iPod/iTunes, you have to do more than deliver something that is merely OK, "doesn't suck" or is "pretty cool". Especially against the majority market holder. Witness Apple's move into the smartphone segment - against all prognostication by pundits and market leaders alike. To be successful against the iPod/iTunes hegemony, the Zune ecosystem must deliver a radically better user experience. It doesn't. It doesn't suck (for the most part), but that's being damned by faint praise - and no way to gain marketshare.


Rokcet, if the so-called lock-in was the only thing driving Apple's success, I might agree, but you conveniently ignore all the other aspects, operational and design driven, let alone marketing driven. And you need to be specific about what you mean when you say "lock-in". "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means".

I've never seen God spelled that way.

Aloud isn't spelled that way, "aloud" is. Allowed is spelled "allowed". Gawd you are a pathetic pedant. Just sayin'. It's a perfectly acceptable spell-checker fail. And few double-check contextual analysis to see if the usage is proper in blogs dude. Chill the eff out!

A lot of people change when they get married ..... some for the better ... some for the worse. ... Melinda seems to have changed the focus of Bills' life. Good on her.

I'd call that superb brand placing and marketing.