A pox on Microsoft!

[Reorte]

5 minutes ago, melmerby said:

Why is Microsoft considered differently to Apple where Safari is built into iOS?

 

Probably because Microsoft's bigger and thus more easily noticed. To take it to the other extreme if you designed your own system from scratch, one that relies entirely on its own built-in stuff and can't use any other then no-one's going to pay any attention to that if it's got a userbase of half a dozen people. There needs to be sufficient market presence for it to be a concern.

 

I know very little of iOS though. Is Safari built in to the point of being unavoidable, or is it merely a supplied option that can be easily removed and ignored, nothing in there to try to prevent or discourage you from doing so?

[woodenhead]

Just now, melmerby said:

See my post from 17 hours ago!

But no-one listened so I reiterated haha

[whart57]

34 minutes ago, melmerby said:

And hasn't been for a long long time

 

True, Windows 98 was the last of the DOS based OS.

[whart57]

30 minutes ago, melmerby said:

Why is Microsoft considered differently to Apple where Safari is built into iOS?

 

Apple is a closed system. IOS only runs on Apple hardware and only runs applications sold by Apple.

 

Microsoft software on the other hand is designed for hardware supplied by others. It's an anti-trust issue if Microsoft uses its market dominance to deny that hardware to others. Similarly it's an anti-trust issue if Microsoft uses its dominance to close off opportunities to competitors who might provide an alternative choice to customers. Apple has never achieved the sort of market dominance that would let it assume a monopoly.

[Reorte]

50 minutes ago, whart57 said:

 

True, Windows 98 was the last of the DOS based OS.

I thought ME was, although I appreciate that that's best forgotten.

[Pete the Elaner]

2 hours ago, melmerby said:

And hasn't been for a long long time

 

One of my former IT colleagues used to insist Windows NT (NT4.0 as it was then) was 'just DOS'. (For those unfamiliar, NT was never a DOS system. Its earliest version was I believe 3.5, which looked like Windows 3.11. Windows 3.11, 95, 98 & Millennium were all DOS-based).

 

When he asked someone for a 'DOS boot disk', I created an NT boot (floppy) disk & handed it to him. He was not impressed at all, especially when I reminded him that he always insisted it was 'just DOS'. The systems boot in different ways, so an NT disk will not boot a blank PC like a DOS one. 

[Pete the Elaner]

2 hours ago, melmerby said:

Why is Microsoft considered differently to Apple where Safari is built into iOS?

 

I find Apple much more intrusive than Microsoft. The latest Mac OS is much more obstructive when it comes to updates.

Does anyone remember the earlier iPods? Uploading music as media files was a new thing back then, but you could not just copy your MP3s onto it, you were forced to install iTunes.

I do not know if iPhones are different because I have never owned one, but copying files (including music) onto my Android has never required any software. I just plug it in then drag & drop.

[Hroth]

11 minutes ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

I find Apple much more intrusive than Microsoft. The latest Mac OS is much more obstructive when it comes to updates.

Does anyone remember the earlier iPods? Uploading music as media files was a new thing back then, but you could not just copy your MP3s onto it, you were forced to install iTunes.

I do not know if iPhones are different because I have never owned one, but copying files (including music) onto my Android has never required any software. I just plug it in then drag & drop.

 

Sony minidisc recorders (remember them?🤪) had a similar approach.  Sony produced several with USB connection which would have been handy if they supported straightfoward drag'n'drop*, but transfer was through an ill designed and executed program. Luckily I'd bought it from Argos and returned it easily for a full refund...

 

* I know that Minidisc has a different encoding method and doesn't support MP3, but the Sony program made conversion and transfer an almost impossible hoop-jumping exercise.

 

Edited January 8 by Hroth

[D9020 Nimbus]

4 hours ago, whart57 said:

 

Apple is a closed system. IOS only runs on Apple hardware and only runs applications sold by Apple.

 

Microsoft software on the other hand is designed for hardware supplied by others. It's an anti-trust issue if Microsoft uses its market dominance to deny that hardware to others. Similarly it's an anti-trust issue if Microsoft uses its dominance to close off opportunities to competitors who might provide an alternative choice to customers. Apple has never achieved the sort of market dominance that would let it assume a monopoly.

Not quite true. iOS/iPadOS only runs applications downloaded from the App Store; some are free (as in beer). However it's only recently that you’ve been able to select an alternative browser as the default — and it is a condition for a browser to be accepted on the App Store that it must use the same rendering engine as Safari, so alternative browsers aren’t the same as on other systems.

 

Intermediate Mac OS updates are much more painful than Windows ones — they are equivalent to a full OS upgrade every time, and take about 2 hours. Intermediate Windows upgrades take typically less than five minutes.

[whart57]

Still a closed system. Apple controls what can be downloaded and I'm pretty certain Apple also controls the interface developers have to use to make their apps work. Linux and Android are open. It is possible to install Android apps without requiring Google Play, users of Huawei phones do it all the time since Donald Trump's decision to start a trade war with China. Linux is open as part of its licensing. Microsoft has to be squared with folding stuff but it's very rare that Microsoft do more than sell the hooks. Apple though is different.

[Reorte]

1 hour ago, whart57 said:

Still a closed system. Apple controls what can be downloaded and I'm pretty certain Apple also controls the interface developers have to use to make their apps work. Linux and Android are open. It is possible to install Android apps without requiring Google Play, users of Huawei phones do it all the time since Donald Trump's decision to start a trade war with China. Linux is open as part of its licensing. Microsoft has to be squared with folding stuff but it's very rare that Microsoft do more than sell the hooks. Apple though is different.

There's something to be said for a consistency of interface, and Microsoft's been getting worse and worse on that front for years, but I don't like any form of rigid enforcement as the solution.

[kevinlms]

Here's another conspiracy theory.

 

MS caused Hattons, to announce closure of their business!

[MJI]

11 is pretty horrid, 10 was bad enough. 7 was ok.

 

I use firefox Email home Thunderbird, work outlook. No ms accounts on either.

 

Home will go linux before 11

 

Work pc has been moved back to 10 twice.

 

Still loads of junk and save is borked in word

 

 

[MJI]

I prefer to program than learn a new word processor every month

[55020]

On 08/01/2024 at 14:20, Pete the Elaner said:

Does anyone remember the earlier iPods? Uploading music as media files was a new thing back then, but you could not just copy your MP3s onto it, you were forced to install iTunes.

 

Not only that but iTunes then converted the file format into something else.  A long time ago I thought "OK I'll give this iPod thing a go", so I converted all my LPs and tapes into mp3 and then uploaded them onto an iPod.  As disc space was a premium on my laptop, I never kept a copy of the many thousands of converted tracks.

 

A year or so later Creative introduced a great little MP3 player.  I got one and thought I would be able to get MY mp3s back off the iPod and then put them on the Creative Player, oh no Apple decided that the process would be one way only!  I couldn't recover them, end of.

 

At that point I realised that it was a fundamental Apple core concept that they wanted to trap the user and never let them leave.  I stuck up two fingers to Apple and have never been back.  Not once have I regretted that decision.  Apple products still drive me mad when I'm forced to use them at work.

 

Apple is an American invention and an American obsession.  I'm happy to leave it over there!

 

 

Steve

[Reorte]

I've never owned anything from Apple. The MP3 player is a good example - I couldn't see any point at all in having to install proprietary software on my computer to upload music to it when it was perfectly possible to make an MP3 player that just appeared as a USB mass storage device I could copy files to and from like anything else, and indeed there were plenty of other makes around that did just that.

[MJI]

Minidisc uses ATRAC I like MD.

 

I did a document a few days ago, everything had moved.

 

As to saving, i have a blank one i copy to where I want it and rename in cmd prompt.

 

Double click, and edit.

 

With the file saveas replaced by some weird screen, i bypass it.

 

I am tempted to write a windows 11 mod to move the buttons around on the software  everytime it is started.

 

My boss knows what i do, gave him the choice, learn ms word of the day, or write software to sell.

[Michael Hodgson]

17 hours ago, MJI said:

11 is pretty horrid, 10 was bad enough. 7 was ok.

 

So what don't you like about them ?

[MJI]

17 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

So what don't you like about them ?

Lack of 3d elements, removal of program borders, constant hijacking of your current choices to use mses.

 

As an example outlook email hijacked links to websites to use edge rather than default browser. Deleting edge did not fix it.

 

All the post 7 uis are pretty terrible,  if your vision is not perfect, forget ir.

 

 

I can lose a lot of time to rubbish like this.

 

I got hardware support to roll back to 10 twice as 11 moved everything.

 

Not got the time to modify, or learn it.

 

Stop changing my tools!!!!

[woodenhead]

Funny old world - I was forced to upgrade at work as my laptop needed a rebuild after some sort of corruption to a Visual Studio extension.

 

Two hours to rebuild the basic build then I added on Visual Studio, a few extensions, SQL and reinstalled some drivers and after a about a day of some elements looking strange I am fine with it.

 

Clearly how people react to Win 11 is personal, but for me it was not an issue in the end.

[Talltim]

16 minutes ago, MJI said:

Lack of 3d elements, removal of program borders, constant hijacking of your current choices to use mses.

 

As an example outlook email hijacked links to websites to use edge rather than default browser. Deleting edge did not fix it.

 

 

 

Although mine was set to Edge and still opens hyperlinks in Chrome (my Default Browser)

[MJI]

Problem is they keep changing stuff.

 

I liked of all things 98 OSR2 as i could happily multitask stuff in dos.

 

Also dislike windows servers, slow and unreliable compared to netware

[30801]

5 hours ago, Reorte said:

I've never owned anything from Apple. The MP3 player is a good example - I couldn't see any point at all in having to install proprietary software on my computer to upload music to it when it was perfectly possible to make an MP3 player that just appeared as a USB mass storage device I could copy files to and from like anything else, and indeed there were plenty of other makes around that did just that.

 

I have a Diamond Rio kicking about. Predates USB so it connected via the parallel port.

Everything that came after is thanks to Diamond battling the recording industry so you were allowed to copy your CDs to little boxes.

[Michael Hodgson]

1 hour ago, MJI said:

Problem is they keep changing stuff.

 

That's my biggest gripe about ebay.  It ain't broke but we'll fix it so it doesn't work!

[Reorte]

3 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

So what don't you like about them ?

I'm in the same boat, although I think I've already said that it's been downhill from XP, and that wasn't much of a peak (on the user-facing side anyway, there have been under the bonnet improvements like more reliable, newer hardware support, better security). Things like telemetry I find unappealing to outright offensive, and the best that can be said for many user interface changes is that they're change for the sake of change (which I dislike), to actively worse, although at least one or two of the more extreme bad decisions there in 11 have been fixed (forced taskbar grouping). I've already mentioned that the inconsistency in the UIs, and the general style seems to get more and more obtuse as if it's following fashion and nothing more (it's telling how if you look around there are people who keep defending it merely because it looks more "modern" - fails on two fronts with me, that!)

 

11 looks a little nicer than 10 though. Mind you, I actually liked the look of Vista, which'll probably make anyone automatically dismiss anything further I've got to say on this!