Could you not just download the update then delete the app?

Or re-download the app, then the update, then delete the app?

Are you sure you haven't deleted the app after the update was published but not installed?

Ok. Zite is awesome.
I've grabbed Paper by 53 as well. It's highly recommended and looks great.

Need to do some research into must have iPad apps.

Five must know commands for the Terminal.

Thought people might find these handy. Enjoy tinkering in the Terminal.

Thing is, it's completely against the whole ethos that Jobs tried to install in the company, and I feel a bit wobbly about Woz coming out and saying this now.  Having just read Jobs' biography, they had their first minor argument about this with the Apple II.  Woz wanted to sell it with lots of expansion room, as befits his background as a fiddler and hacker.  Jobs wanted to package the whole thing so it wasn't just a bunch of blokes with beards in garages who'd buy it.

As Apple strengthened, Jobs kept coming back to this.  They're the only company who sell the whole package, from hardware to software to support, without you needing various people's input.  And it works!  They're perfectly designed for people like me who are happy to pay for a laptop, a desktop, a phone and a tablet, and just want them all to work together quite happily without complaint, and have no inclination whatsoever to buy something outside the app store nor tinker with something at root level.

If you want an open tablet, there're a million Android choices, likewise with phones.  If you want an open OS, there are millions of Linux clones.  A couple of times this year, Apple have slipped into the position of the most valuable company ever in the history of the planet (as someone on Twitter mentioned, it won't be long until Apple the company sue apple the fruit for the rights to the name, and win); they're not doing ANYTHING wrong, and opening up their kit to appease Woz's comments won't do anything to improve them.  In fact, there's more to lose; an iPad running dodgy software is still an iPad and there are all sorts of implications of tacit acceptance by Apple.  They don't want people crying that their hardware is broken because they installed and ran uncertified software.

The argument that good things came from jail breaking doesn't work.  After all, folders/notifications/Growl ARE in iOS5 and OSX10.8, so who cares if they weren't bodged into them by random 3rd parties from the start?  I'd rather wait for Apple to look at what the jail breakers are doing and choose their own way to integrate it.  If that means I have a bunch of people complaining that Android had feature X ages ago, who cares; iOS suits me absolutely perfectly and I don't mind in the slightest that it took longer to filter through.

So I see no benefit and a few potential downsides.  Steve Jobs had it right, and the world's most valuable technology company, one of its most recognisable and most aspirational brands, is there as his legacy and proof that his system worked.  I've found a couple of quotes from him about this...

"Apple's the only company left that designs the whole widget.  Hardware, software, developer relations, marketing.  It turns out that, in my opinion, is Apple's greatest strategic advantage.  We didn't have a plan, so it looked like this was a tremendous deficit.  But with a plan, it's Apple's core strategic advantage, if you believe that there's still room for innovation in this industry, which I do, because Apple can innovate faster than anyone else."

"One company makes the software.  The other makes the hardware... It's not working.  The innovation can't happen fast enough.  The integration isn't seamless enough.  No-one takes responsibility for the user interface.  It's a mess."

"Also, our solution encompasses operating system software, server software, application software, and hardware.  Apple is the only company in the world that has all that under one roof.  We can invent a complete solution that works- and take responsibility for it."

Apple right now must be the purest example of "if it ain't broke" in history.

Said in a 2005 interview, I think.

Some greater accommodation of Linux on Apple hardware for dual-booting would be welcome. It can be a bit of a piss around at the moment. And less enforced nudging onto the latest OS. 

Apart from that, I agree with the sentiment that there are plenty of alternatives for more open software. I love Apple stuff because its Unix with an easy and sexual UI and GUI slapped on the top. And it has custom hardware so no driver issues.

MattyJ wrote:

If they open it up more then they sure will have to drop the whole "Mac's just work!" mythos.

I'll reply to this as it seems to represent the general feeling of people's replies.

In short, people don't seem to understand what's meant by "open", nor do people seem to have grasped that "can be tinkered with" does not mean "hard to use".

I'll use OS X as an example. OS X is actually a really open system, because it's built on top of FreeBSD UNIX. The core of OS X is fully free (as in freedom) software, that you can tinker with, and redistribute.

OS X is also supremely user friendly. The power to mess around with the guts is there if you want it, it's not hidden away. I play with the Terminal, I play with programming languages and installing the X11 software, Xcode and all that jazz. My Mum, with her Mac Mini, just doesn't do that. The fact that it's an open system she can fiddle with just never occurs to her. She just answers her email, browses the web, whatever.

Hence, OS X is open, very tinkerable, very powerful, and still user friendly. It still "just works", and this is because of its open nature, not despite its open nature. It's open nature means that clever fixes for problems can be found by anyone, not just Apple. iOS is rock solid because it is based on OS X, as OS X is based on FreeBSD.

iOS could be the same. There's nothing stopping Apple from doing this. They could, in the next update, just make it so that you can install apps from sources other than the App Store. The average bloke in the street won't even notice, and if they do, I doubt they'll care. They'll keep using the App Store because it's right there, in front of them, and is a supremely easy and beautiful thing to use. They could do the same with the hardware. Why shouldn't you be able to open up your iPad as easily as you can unscrew the bottom of your Mac Mini? Again, the average bloke in the street isn't going to crack open his shiny new iPad and start fucking with it, any more than I'm going to open up the bonnet of my car and try and put a turbo in it (but I'd like the option there if I decide to try and learn how). But the clever guy who wants to tinker and learn, he might just come up with something interesting, which Apple can then build off. (Remember that Notifications is basically a rip off of Growl, and folders were originally only for jailbreakers.)

And you know what? The Apple II was designed by Woz. The tinkerer. The guy who plays with hardware and comes up with interesting stuff. Would the Apple II really have been worse if Woz had got his way? I don't see how. How would it have been worse to have more upgrade options there if you wanted them? Woz made the Apple the great machine it was. Jobs just discovered how to sell it, how to give it that top to bottom polish that Apple can give a machine because they design every part of it.

People also seem to have got the idea that Apple is successful because their stuff is closed. Again, you're ignoring the history of how Apple got here. Why did people switch to the Mac back when they released the original iMac and OS X? Because it was easy to use. Why did programmers start creating awesome software for the Mac? Why is the Mac more secure, more stable, and more powerful than Windows? Because the core of OS X is open. They're just closing stuff up now because they've got to the top of the pile, because they don't have to be open any more to attract programmers. People code for iOS because of the money, now, more than anything else. So the idea that "Apple stuff being closed has lead to their success" is bollocks. They got the ball rolling with open technologies.

Now, I'm not saying that they shouldn't have the Apple eco system in place. I like the Apple eco system, for the most part. I quite like the Mac App Store, but I also like having other options. I like getting my music from iTunes, but I also have a lot of CDs left to rip. Do you see how these things have been made better because they're open? There's no way I'd own an iPod if it could only play music from the iTunes store. There's no way I'd own a Mac if the App Store was the only way of getting software. (In fact, due to the way the Mac App Store works, a lot of the software I rely on for my work would be simply unattainable - you're not allowed to put software on the MAS if you're allowed to share it, hence why no Firefox on the App Store.)

Apple got a great operating system by building it on top of open software. The reason I fell in love with my first Mac was because it was more open than Windows, and still easier to use. The reason I haven't got an iPad is because, while they are wonderful things to use, Apple has more say on what it runs than I do. The iPad wouldn't suddenly become shit because I could install Firefox on it. I'd probably grab some apps from the App Store, too. It's win-win; Apple sell one more iPad, I get to play with it's guts. As long as I'm not doing anything illegal, I don't see why I shouldn't be able to play my toys.

I know this post is massive, but I really think it'd be great if Apple stuff was a little bit more open. For those of us that want to tinker. It wouldn't change anything as far as the average user is concerned. I don't see how it would be a detriment at all.

To leave off, I'll tell you a little story.  When I owned an iPhone, I noticed that the torch apps on the App Store would get dimmer when the light went dimmer (like a Mac does when the light changes, so as to not blind you). I thought this was a bit silly for something that's meant to be a torch. Plus, I thought it'd be great if it got brighter when the screen was facing down, i.e., away from the user, as they're trying to illuminate something. Ah ha! Great idea for an app, the first really good torch app. So I looked around for books or websites that'd teach me to build apps. I very quickly find that Apple (at the time, it may have changed) didn't allow developers access to the brightness settings, at least in the way I wanted to use them. The closed nature of iOS meant I couldn't do something clever. It meant that iPhone users were denied a torch app that did what it was meant to do. How did being closed make things better, in this case?

Apple stuff is brilliant because they work on every aspect of it, from over all hardware aesthetics, right down to the tiniest details of the UI. Making it more open (in terms of both hardware and software) would not change this. More open Apple stuff? Count me the fuck in. The tinkerers of today are the Wozes of tomorrow. And where would Jobs be without Woz? Trying to sell empty computer cases, that's where.

And an alternative app store, as well as cutting into their profits, would open the backdoor to malware. Another thing that Apple has an excellent reputation for.

I'll plonk this here that after Bootcamping for Diablo 3 for a while now I've only just dug up the Trackpad ++ package that makes gesture stuff work far better in Win7. Trying to go from OSX smooth swishyness to Win7 basic clickerry had been getting right on ma teats.

I use a mouse for Daiblo-ing so that's all ok but trying to fart around in browsers and whatnot with inverted scrolling, no swipe back/forward and the rest has finally pushed me to hunt down some plugin things. 

Here's to hoping they didn't install too many keyloggers, malwares and the rest. Just a fyi for any other Pro/Air users round these parts.

@Blue Swirl or anyone else that is clued up on Terminal.

At my old place my mate setup a server for movies etc. I changed something using terminal so that on start up my mac automatically searches for the IP of the server to connect to it. network stylee.

This was great at the time but now I have moved out it is kind of annoying that I get a 'Cannot connect' message every time I boot.
I cant remember what it was I entered into Terminal to get it doing this, any ideas?

I'd say for £60 it's probably worth it if only for re-sale value, but I never upgraded to 3 because the better screen, when I had no issues with 2's, didn't outweigh the thicker size and lengthier re-charge time.

Don't think it's faster, but certainly a little thicker and gets a bit hotter (if the internet is to be believed). Battery life may not be quite so good also. Real world I'm sure you wouldn't even notice.

Trade off is you get an amazing screen and more grunt.

The new MacBook Pro with the retina screen looks tasty. Anyone know what else was announced tonight at the Apple conference?

humantarget wrote:

The new MacBook Pro with the retina screen looks tasty. Anyone know what else was announced tonight at the Apple conference?

Yar,  just ordered one for work.