Apple News: They made $4bn profit

[kedawa]

Nonsense.  Software today is bloated as hell because making efficient use of space is no longer a priority, but bundling crapware is.  There are plenty of non-bloated programs out there for comparison, but most commercial software is full of unnecessary and unwanted data.

[zylesea]

I am guessing most of this is in IPods, IPads and Phones more than computer.
But you got to give it to Steve Jobs, he knows what a large amount of people want.

Correction: .. he does know *how to make* a large amount of people want.
But regardless whether you like Apple or not it is a fact that this business result is outstanding.

[Tension]

Say you take a puzzle game from 1990 that takes say a meg of ram for the code and associated data and another meg with the graphics and sound. compressed that would fit on a 1.44 meg floppy right.

Nowadays practically identical game programming can use a gig or more of graphics data and hundreds of megs of mp3's.

Thats nonsense.  A "puzzle game" with over a gig of graphics data?

Alarm bells should be ringing.

[tone007]

Balderdash! Poppycock!

[KThunder]

Thats nonsense.  A "puzzle game" with over a gig of graphics data?

Alarm bells should be ringing.

Alarm bells? little dramatic don't you think? I'm not talking about a simple internet game but a really good installible puzzle game.

I have a majohng game from 2001 that has 326megs of back ground screens and another 100 megabytes for game graphics. All the background screens are 1280x1024 x 24bit and all the game graphics are 24 bit as well. And all the audio is stored as full songs for playback adding another 96 megs. The actual program itself is only a few megs.

That is a non hd 2d game from 2k1 on cd. Newer games use dvd background graphics and multiple mipmap level textures all in truecolor. I also have the Myst puzzle game which if memory serves requires a significant mount of space to install, all because of graphics and audio storage.
 
My point (obviously missed or ignored) is that hires truecolor graphics and even mp3 audio will make modern games look "bloated" even though they really aren't. And computer power is wasted if we only use 1990 storage and memory requirements in mind.

here is a modern puzzle game like I am talking about: Moraff's MahJongg 2009
http://www.softwarediversions.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=99

hmmm what are the system requirements on that?

Minimum System Requirements:
1.0GHz CPU, 512MB RAM, 38MB - 670MB Disk Space

OMG you expect me to splurge on a computer with a 1ghz cpu, half gig of ram, and up to 670MB of storage space for a Mahjongg Game?!?!  

Oh wait my cpu is more than twice that fast, I have 4 times more memory and 670MB won't make even a tiny dent in my hd.

And a I've played Moraff's Mahjongg and it is beautiful and fun.

[kedawa]

Most modern games also have a few hundred megabytes of video splashscreens to remind you of who developed the game, what middleware and codecs they licenced, who published the game, etc. every single time you launch it.  That is bloat.  Many also install other useless or redundant bits of software that take up space and cycles.  We really can do without the GFWL client, GameSpy Arcade, etc.

[KThunder]

Most modern games also have a few hundred megabytes of video splashscreens to remind you of who developed the game, what middleware and codecs they licenced, who published the game, etc. every single time you launch it.  That is bloat.  Many also install other useless or redundant bits of software that take up space and cycles.  We really can do without the GFWL client, GameSpy Arcade, etc.

You may consider that to be bloat, but if you developed said middleware and it's splash screen is your only credit in the game you may think differently, in other words the developer may be required by the license to include spashscreens. And honestly 99% of the people out there don't care if a few hundred megs of their 500gig harddrive is "wasted" on a video (which may or may not look cool, ive seen some that look very cool).

As for the other stuff I agree to a point, but I have many games and have had zero problem with any of that. It is skippable, or uninstallable. The only one I don't like is steam but I don't usually buy games online so I don't use it the way it is intended.

[Amiga_Nut]

$4 billion profit. Hats off to them.

:flame:  :hat:

Let the flames begin.

I don't need to flame them really, just shows that selling flawed products (and the iPhone and iPad not being capable of surfing Flash content on the internet is certainly as big a flaw as one could get on internet devices like those) to morons is big business

[runequester]

I don't need to flame them really, just shows that selling flawed products (and the iPhone and iPad not being capable of surfing Flash content on the internet is certainly as big a flaw as one could get on internet devices like those) to morons is big business

If they sell that well in spite of not having flash, I'd wager a bet that flash just isn't very important to most consumers

[Kesa]

if apple is so great then can someone please tell me why they are a pain in the a** to use? People keep on telling me (on internet) how easy they are to use and how brilliant they are but i just don't get it. The dockbar is confusing, i'm constantly resizing windows, maximizing windows that don't maximize and everytime i open a few programs i get lost of where everything is on the screen with everything overlapping everything else i end up trying to layout my windows so i can access it easily which is extremely annoying. :madashell:

Everything on windows is easier whereas the osx is extremley clumsy. I would say i am 2x more productive on a pc then the osx. At least 2x.

We have a table in the uni library with 10 pretty imacs on it and another 50 dull dell pcs in the same big room on different tables. No one uses the imacs  because they are so hard to use. Everyone i know avoids the imacs like the plaque. :rolleyes:

Please explain.  :huh:

[koaftder]

if apple is so great then can someone please tell me why they are a pain in the a** to use? People keep on telling me (on internet) how easy they are to use and how brilliant they are but i just don't get it.

I don't blame you wondering this. OS X user experience really is crap. YOu can't use the finder for anything without knowing the keyboard shortcuts. Same for preview. When you need to search something you get no feedback. YOu don't even know if it's carrying on it's task. I could go on for ages but I wont.

I like it because it's a better desktop environ than *nix and gives me all the *nix stuff I care about. It's the slowest OS money can but we just throw hardware at it.

My girlfriend can't use it because when she hops on my machine shit starts flinging around on the screen because I have expose set for the corners and dock to hide and zoom on cursor overs.

[kedawa]

Pretty much every GUI has usability problems, but I would agree that OSX isn't really any more intuitive than Windows.  They both have their idiosyncrasies, they both have plenty of extraneous features that I prefer to disable, and neither one ships with a decent file manager.
Apple is just very good at marketing and packaging their products, and by avoiding the bottom end of the market, they create a false image of quality and reliability as compared to Windows PCs.  There are plenty of ugly, unreliable, crapware-filled Windows boxes out there making the PC look bad, but not so many junk Macs.

[Pyromania]

Pretty much every GUI has usability problems, but I would agree that OSX isn't really any more intuitive than Windows.  They both have their idiosyncrasies, they both have plenty of extraneous features that I prefer to disable, and neither one ships with a decent file manager.
Apple is just very good at marketing and packaging their products, and by avoiding the bottom end of the market, they create a false image of quality and reliability as compared to Windows PCs.  There are plenty of ugly, unreliable, crapware-filled Windows boxes out there making the PC look bad, but not so many junk Macs.

A Snow Leopard might eat you for saying that.

[smerf]

Hi,

@MikeyMike,

Long time no see, maybe I haven't been on the boards that much. Anywhoose, glad to see that you are still here.

smerf

[runequester]

Having a job where I have the misfortune of occasionally having to teach basic computer tasks to people who have no idea about computers, the notion that windows is somehow "intuitive" is hogwash.
People use "intuitive" when they should have said "what I am used to"

[ElPolloDiabl]

Having a job where I have the misfortune of occasionally having to teach basic computer tasks to people who have no idea about computers, the notion that windows is somehow "intuitive" is hogwash.
People use "intuitive" when they should have said "what I am used to"

Amiga and 68k MacOS is intuitive. I've seen people who have never used a computer before get the hang of it in around a minute. My cousin who is actually quite thick had no trouble remembering amigados commands and any other tinkering, but gave up on computers (meaning PC) when the playstation 2 came out.
I found Windows 95 simple enough to pick up after only knowing how to use a dos based directory manager.
Use to be that you could learn the basics without ever consulting a book or guide.