gnaffle

1) The iPhone iterations haven't been insignificant, unless you're expecting "mission impossible" technologies (or replaceable batteries and memory slots).

2) They have gone on record saying that they will introduce "new product categories" this year, so we'll see whether they keep their promise.

I think the main problem is that you could say exactly the same about Ballmer at Microsoft. He also ran Microsoft very well from an operations point of view.

What we know for certain is that Apple can still _execute_ very well and stay competitive in a certain market. The latest offerings of Macs, iPhones and iPads are ample proof of that.

The question which is still unanswered is whether Apple, with Tim Cook and the other leaders, has what it takes to stay innovative. It's too early to tell, and I think it's certainly to early to write a book about it.

Since Tim Cook has gone on record saying that we will wee new product categories within the year, my guess is that we'll know for certain in 2-3 years time.

Or Skype for that matter (what eBay bought it for, and what they sold it to Microsoft for).

In comparison, NeXT which became the foundation for almost everything Apple has done since 1997 cost about $650M if I remember correctly.

So, there is NO actual evidence? As in, this is just anecdotal, as in the driver, dealer and technician were all wrong in this instance: http://www.leftlanenews.com/toyota-avalon-displays-unintende...

..and the 400% increase of unintended acceleration events (from the testimony) starting in 2004 is also a complete accident, or brought on by some witchhunt?

Aren't you stretching the limits of what is a reasonable assumption in order to maintain that opinion?

I don't think they appear to be, after numerous recalls affecting millions of Toyota cars. That there have been real cases on unintended acceleration related to Toyota is not really in dispute, unless you think Toyota did the recall mainly as a PR effort.

Some people might be unwilling to admit that they stepped on the wrong pedal, but the likelyhood that some random HNer would do that and then make a post about it?

ABS brakes work by relieving _or_ reinforcing brake pressure, so depending on the system you could end up with uneven, little or no braking action after a failure. Or you could end up with locked wheels.

Actually, the ECU might very well do that if it gets in field updates :)

Mechanical pieces fail over time, but we know a whole lot more about inspecting for, finding and preventing mechanical faults than we know how to create defect free software.

That's possible, but I don't think it's likely. The feel of an accelerator is very different from a brake pedal which normally will not go all the way down. Of course, more details about the story would be nice.

Btw, there have also been Prius recalls due to faulty ABS software, so while you'll probably always have some control, braking action can certainly be affected by software issues.

In the car at issue in that lawsuit, it didn't have a brake control system in the ECU at all. But yes, in later (2010) models that was the case.

Well, if you read the testimony, it seems clear that Toyota is overconfident in their software. They have updated the ECU software, but still as of 2010 they managed to implement the brake failsafe in the same software task that senses the accelerator, so if that task dies the brake failsafe won't work either.

That there have been tens of deaths and millions of car recalls because of unintended acceleration in Toyotas cars is at least not an urban legend. Of course it will be very difficult to locate the exact problem, but this testimony is interesting in that it shows how that can be the case (contrary to what Toyota has claimed) [Edit: And they have actually been able to reproduce unintended acceleration by memory corrupption].

I think the most important detail is that he slammed on the brakes and the car continued to accelerate. Cars with a computer controlled accelerator should be able to stop accelerating if the brake pedal is pushed.

I would also expect that he would recognize it if the accelerator pedal had been stuck on a floor mat.

I think it's interesting that even in a small forum such as HN, we still have an anecdote. It's also interesting that car owners still claim to experience the acceleration problem after the two (mechanical) recalls.

It reminds me of the Therac 25 incident, where there were only "anecdotes" to be found for _years_, and the company concluded that a mechanical switch had to be the fault. It's very interesting that we now have evidence that the software _can_ be at fault.

I agree that the main problem wasn't the options, but I do think that some of options are were unnecessary (the distinction between hibernate and sleep, for instance).

The real lesson is that design by comittee over years trying to reach a compromise will often result in terrible design decisions. It wouldn't even have been a problem if they had kept the icon, if it just did what people expected it to! (shutdown, not sleep as was the default). And now we have Windows 8, where they've hidden the shutdown menu inside Settings.

Here's a good story about the shutdown menu in Vista, and how it came to be:

Original rant by Joel Spolsky: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/11/21.html

Answer from the guy working on the shutdown menu: http://moishelettvin.blogspot.no/2006/11/windows-shutdown-cr...

Another response from the guy that implemented the OSX shutdown menu: http://arno.org/arnotify/2006/11/the-design-of-the-mac-os-x-...

I know he's not talking about web apps. But how is Microsoft going to be a dominant player providing services to apps running on platforms that are controlled by others?

Both Apple and Google want to control their own cloud platform, and they can make sure that their cloud solution is better integrated than Microsofts offerings on their own platforms. And at least Google knows how to do this kind of thing really, really well.

So my point is, unless one expects platforms / operating systems to overall become irrelevant (which some web proponents believe), I can't see how he can draw this conclusion in earnest. It's exactly the same argument he's criticized others for making time and time again with Apple, the only difference being that "Apple should give up their operating system, bundle Windows and only focus on hardware". Of course it's obvious today why that would have been a terrible idea.

Microsoft already has a huge pile of cash. That's not the problem. The problem is that the execution is good, but not good enough. Compromize and difficult choices (Surface vs Surface RT) everywhere.

They released the music kit for the Surface, but where are the vast amount of great music production / performance apps from various well established companies such as Korg, Moog, Cubase, all of which are available on iOS?

Microsofts enterprise business is founded on the fact that everyone runs Windows, so no, that doesn't work well in the long run (ask Novell).

How is it compared to IntelliJ?

How are you any more tied to old JDK versions on Linux, compared to Microsoft? Also, I'm curious to what requirements you have that makes it OK to upgrade hardware and apply service packs and Java updates, but not to do OS release upgrades on Linux?

Exactly.

I think it is spot-on right up to the conclusion, which I disagree with.

> The next ubiquity isn’t running on every device, it’s talking to every device.

I don't see how Gruber can come to this conclusion unless he has suddenly changed position and thinks the open web will eventually win out over native apps.

The problem, of course, is that for a company that wants to be Microsofts size, they _need_ to own the platform, because the platform owners have an incentive to limit their dependence on you and make sure that their cloud services work better on their platform. iMessage and Hangouts? Integrated. Skype? Not so.

The only way to "own" the platform owners is to have an essential, popular product that customers demand. As much as Microsoft would want to, they don't have such a product (perhaps Office in the business market, but that's about it).

Edit: Wanted to add "How Microsoft Lost the API war" which is another interesting take on the platform thing and how Microsoft lost it: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html

> Google recognized that the OS doesn't matter anymore and Microsoft continued to believe it was everything.

I think they recognize all too well that it matters, which is seen by the massive effort in developing and supporting Android, Chrome OS etc. This is just Googles version of Microsoft giving away IE.

This is Motorola Mobility though, which only includes the cell phone business and was spun off from Motorola (not called Motorola Solutions) and later sold to Google.

To clarify, I'm not talking about a replay attack. It's a _relay_ attack where they use the RF signal transmitted by the actualy car/key, just over a bigger distance than you would normally expect.

Yes, but the point of this scheme is that the car "believes" the key is in close range. If that is enough to get it to open the car, the thieves don't have to break any encryption, they just need to relay the RF signal. The faulty assumption on the part of the car manufacturers is that "RF signal present" equals "keyfob nearby".

This is easily (and almost certainly already) solved with pairing the key to the car, so that the car can safely ignore any unlock attempt by another (legitimate) key.

The point of the car alarms and crypto is to notify you if your car is broken into, that will act as a deterrent.

That aside, many car thieves will even steel airbags (very expensive), and you can't exactly go around dismantling and removing them every time you leave the car.

Not sure if it was the case here, but apparently some cars can unlock automatically if the key is nearby.

To hack this, you only need a sensitive receiver that can retransmit the signal from the key, and you need two people, on in proximity to the key, and another nearby the car when it unlocks.

AFAIK it's required by the new terms that you give your real name. And to do much of anything you need to verify your account with an SMS to a previously unused cell phone number.

It doesn't have to be intentional to be evil. But,

1) The decision to require a full name and gender was intentional 2) The decision to merge multiple accounts under the Google+ umbrella was intentional 3) The decision to automate this merging was also intentional.

I've myself been caught off guard with Google storing my search history on one of my customers' Google account because I forgot to log out after managing their AdWords account. Stupid me, right? But just as with Facebook, they've lost my trust. I'm not alone, and I think it will come back to bite them in the end.

I've watched that keynote, and it certainly wasn't there. While Jobs had a tendency to claim ideas as his own internally (often after dismissing it initially), to the public he never seemed to like to claim ideas as his own, but rather make a point of how the products were a result of teamwork.

Not necessarily. Different teas brew best at different temperatures. A quick and easy solution of course is to boil the water and let it sit for a while until the temperature drops.