Jason Abrahamson

As like most IT professionals supporting corporate networks, I was dreading the upgrade path for Windows XP. In 2010 Microsoft was finally going to force people to migrate to Windows Vista. Most IT professionals were dreading this upgrade because if our job wasn’t bad enough it was going to get even harder.

After over six years of delays Vista got a luke-warm reception amongst business users. Most of us in the IT community turn and ran for the hills stocking up on XP Licenses for the cold winter. We saw Vista and didn’t like what we saw one bit. It was the first OS Microsoft released since Windows ME that was actually a downgrade to the current release. The stability issues vista had, and security center made our jobs 10x harder and 10x less efficient.

When Dell announced that they were going to break ranks with Microsoft and continue offering Windows XP to all users Microsoft quickly re-evaluated their stance on Vista licensing. Microsoft agreed to allow users to purchase a Vista license but legally downgrade to Windows XP till 2010. IT professionals like myself jumped for joy, however, we knew we weren’t out of the woods yet.

As 2010 rapidly approached and Microsoft scrambles to launch Windows 7 it looked like we were about to come to an impasse: Upgrade to Vista or don’t upgrade to Windows 7. Microsoft was not going to allow you to buy a Windows 7 license and downgrade to Windows XP. If that wasn’t bad enough, 2010 is coming and you would no longer beable to buy a Vista license to downgrade to XP. It looked like the day we all feared had come. Either a) We upgrade to Vista, or b) upgrade to Windows 7. Windows 7 Beta is actually better than Vista Ultimate retail, much more stable, but nobody wants to be on the bleeding edge when it comes to business.

So just as we all lined up to swallow the bullet that had been bestowed upon his, Microsoft provided yet another stay of execution. You can continue to get XP downgrade till April of 2011 or Windows 7 SP1 release, whichever comes first.

How many of you had a Commodore 64? I wasn’t as lucky as I had the Atari. Found memories I have from childhood of that Atari though, playing Pitfall, River Raid, Pacman, Star Wars, Asteroids, Missile Command, and everybody’s favorite breakout. These games were simple and entertaining for hours on end. So how cool would it be to capture this forever in the Apple App Store? This guy thought it would and he’s probably right. As you can see from my feelings of the iPhone below that I would not have been buying it anytime soon, but I can’t help but think this is an incredibly obtuse action on Apple’s part. The biggest question here is this: Does the very thing Apple strive for, “think different” actually stifle creativity rather than embrace it?

Interesting dilemma here. Microsoft has been blasted for years over it’s “monopoly” in the computer software business. They have been blasted for compatibility issues and preventing new ideas, development if you will. They keep their code under lock and key deep away in Bill’s bunker. That evil evil Microsoft.

Microsoft develops applications and let’s anybody who want’s to develop applications for their app do so. Their isn’t licensing or asking permission. You’re just allowed to do it. You can post it on various different websites to download your application or resell it on the internet.

Apple on the other hand has taken a different approach. They must approve the applications you install on your iPhone. The only way to install an application that is not sanctioned by Apple is to “jailbreak” your iPhone thus completely voiding your warranty. I understand the concept behind this — the iPhone as I stated earlier is the “smart phone” for dummies and because the phone was designed for non-superusers (i.e.: my brother) then you can’t have them installing whatever they want or you will have this massive influx of complaints. Controlling the software that you’re allowed to run on the phone grossly improves the stability and functionality of the phone. My complaint here though is Apple likes to remind everybody how their devices don’t crash and their devices don’t get viruses, etc, etc, but they seem to have everyone fooled into believing they are vastly superior.

They aren’t superior, they just control the distribution and licensing of their software and applications. This commodore app was blocked by Apple because it violates their SDK. According them them if you want to run an application on iPhone it can’t execute any third party code, “3.3.2 An Application may not itself install or launch other executable code by any means, including without limitation through the use of a plug-in architecture, calling other frameworks, other APIs or otherwise. No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple’s Published APIs and built-in interpreter(s).” Translation: if its an intelligent application that runs the risk of potentially crashing the iPhone then we don’t want it on the iPhone.

So Apple isn’t as good at designing software and applications, just controlling the application they allow people to use.

This is Jason’s Reason #4,563 to hate the iPhone. If you’re a mac fan and feel like you’ve been unfairly beaten up on the last two posts — don’t worry, tomorrow is Microsoft’s turn.

The iPhone is a incredibly interesting piece of technology. It’s like Apple ran out of reason’s to make people buy iPods so they switched to the “iPhone.”

Supposedly the iPhone is so popular because of its amazing functionality and simplistic use forever changing the cell phone market. Apple’s hype that is wrapped up in the iPhone will eventually fizzle much like the iPod did. The iPod was all the rage — and don’t get me wrong its still widely popular, and rightly so, but it’s not the same edge it was before. For those of you mac fans out there don’t think I’m not willing to give credit where credit is due. Make no bones about it, the iPhone is bar none one of the slickest phones on the market. It’s sleek black scratch resistant screen and 8Gb storage make this thing the ultimate little pocket gadget. But that’s just it. It’s a gadget, a gimmick if you will. The iPhone isn’t an enterprise phone and shouldn’t be even compared to such. Sure it does everything an enterprise phone does like push email, calendaring, text messaging, etc — but the iPhone is a gimmick, a kids toy. It’s sort of like the smart phone for dummies (i.e.: Ashton Kutcher) with its large color buttons and exploding keyboard as you type.

Now with Apple’s 3rd generation coming “3gs” Apple fan boys are up in arms that they cannot get the upgrade price to buy it RIGHT NOW. I don’t have a problem with people wanting to stimulate the economy, but eventually something has to give. Every cell phone company has a contract, there is a reason for that contract, the motivate you to stay with their service or hardware. You can change the terms of that contract — but it comes at a price. Now Apple lovers across the country are enraged that they have to wait albeit till September to upgrade. The outcry was truly unbelievable. I could not for the life of me understand why these people felt they were entitled to some kind special treatment just because they couldn’t wait 4 months. What is even more shocking is AT&T caved — that’s right, just like when they released the 2nd generation of the iPhone AT&T is allowing users to upgrade early. If you are eligible to for upgrade between now and September you can purchase the new iPhone for the new contract price.

I guess it pays to whine.