Ready for DRM-controlled gas?

[AnotherFairportfan]

Apple reportedly in talks to buy supercar maker McLaren

It will only run on iGas, which you can only buy at Apple Stations, and you can only buy it with ApplePay using your iThing...

And if they decide they don't like the way you're using the gas in your iMaclaren, they can send a DRM truck to take it back.

[jwhouk]

Considering Liberty Media bought all of Formula One, this probably wasn't surprising.

[GlytchMeister]

And it will receive gas only from a highly-specific type of pump nozzle that breaks really easily, and you won't be able to check the oil or coolant yourself, you will have to bring it in to a iDealership so they can pop the hood with a fancy proprietary magnetic clasp. If you get a flat tire, well, I hope you have $3M lying around because you'll have to buy a new one, because it will cost more to replace the tire than to just buy a whole new iCar.

Oh, and you'll only be able to listen to iMusic. It won't have a normal radio in it. And it will come in three colors. And all of the Windows will break if you hit a bug, but you can buy aftermarket cases that can help protect against this.

Unfortunately, the car will only have a 1 gallon gas tank, so you will have to buy the proprietary aftermarket tank trailer, which costs $500k, which also prevents you from using the protective aftermarket window protection cases.

[Hansontoons]

And it will receive gas only from a highly-specific type of pump nozzle that breaks really easily, and you won't be able to check the oil or coolant yourself, you will have to bring it in to a iDealership so they can pop the hood with a fancy proprietary magnetic clasp. If you get a flat tire, well, I hope you have $3M lying around because you'll have to buy a new one, because it will cost more to replace the tire than to just buy a whole new iCar.

Oh, and you'll only be able to listen to iMusic. It won't have a normal radio in it. And it will come in three colors. And all of the Windows will break if you hit a bug, but you can buy aftermarket cases that can help protect against this.

Unfortunately, the car will only have a 1 gallon gas tank, so you will have to buy the proprietary aftermarket tank trailer, which costs $500k, which also prevents you from using the protective aftermarket window protection cases.

As an Apple product user, I must applaud your comments! While enjoying a pleasant laugh because you are so close to the truth!

The first computer I had on my desk at work was a Mac, late 80's/early 90's. What made us go PC was that Apple didn't have decent drafting software (MacBravo, nicknamed MacBarfo).

I still use Mac because I do not have the patience (or brains) to mess with PC/Microsoft stuff. I jus' wanna look at da purdy pichchurs!

[GlytchMeister]

I have an iPhone and I do almost all of my recreational web browsing on my iPad (including forum posts and fanfic)

But when it's time to get down to business (either schoolwork, presumably workwork when I finally get an engineering job, or videogaming), that's when I break out the laptop, set up all my cords and my little lap desk plank and wireless mouse, crack my knuckles, and start kicking technological ass.

I have used Apple computers exactly three times: the first time was in my high school freshman year when I was dicking around on a school Mac (which was only there for kids who were doing image or video processing or whatever). The second time, it was running Windows, and my hacker cousin was introducing me to the beauty of Skyrim mods. And the third time, I was trying to fix an attendance excel spreadsheet my mom, my aunt, and the local special education school district had managed to bork by trying to get it to work on both Mac and pc, when it was created using extensive formulas and macros and wizardry and shit I don't even understand because some ye olde software engineer made it (I think it might have been Al's long lost twin or something?).

I spent fifteen minutes on the Mac, which was exactly the amount of time I needed to spend on it and not a second more, and I was deeply and fundamentally repulsed by the whole OS. Nothing felt right, it was all wrong and wonky and weird. Every fiber of my being was disturbed and distraught by it. I felt dirty after using it.

I'm not joking around here, either. It was awful.

I was raised on PC, and I don't care if I have to murder Cortana in cold blood and reanimate her desecrated software-corpse with a blood sacrifice, it will still feel better than using a Mac computer.

I might settle for Linux eventually, but that will take a lot of convincing. My laptop is running W10 and, yeah I've borked it a few times, but it usually runs just fine and I have been able to keep the privacy invasionware all nice and murderkilled and cozy and dead with relatively minimal effort. So I'll stick with that until it becomes too much of a hassle or until MS pulls some dumbass stunt that pisses me off somehow. Maybe

...

But I adore my iPad and iPhone. The new iPhone 7 with no headphone jack is a load of crap, though. I'll just stick with my 5c until it dies and buy a 6s off of a coworker or something when they only cost $50

[AnotherFairportfan]

My first computer was an Apple IIc. Then a IIgs.

And it was the way that Jobs/Apple treated the IIgs users (primarily to protect the Mac) that turned me against them.

[GlytchMeister]

My first computer was an Apple IIc. Then a IIgs.

And it was the way that Jobs/Apple treated the IIgs users (primarily to protect the Mac) that turned me against them.

I'm not well versed in Mac-thology, what did he do?

[AnotherFairportfan]

Basically, the IIgs was Woz's idea.

When Woz left Apple (again), Jobs, who was absolutely devoted to his Macs (despite the fact that in the year he referred to the 8-bit - Apple II - division as "the boring division", Apple had made a billion dollars, despite the Mac division LOSING a billion), decided that the IIgs (which cost significantly less) was cannibalising the sales of colour Macs, and, basically, proceeded to smother the IIgs.

(The IIgs, BTW, was a true 16-bit machine that was also fully compatible with the 8-bit Apple II line, had a multi-voice sound synthesiser that was so good they used it to record the music AND voice-over for radio commercials for the machine, and graphics superior to most other machines of the day. And it cost like half what the least-expensive colour Mac did.)

[TazManiac]

My first computer was an Apple IIc. Then a IIgs.

And it was the way that Jobs/Apple treated the IIgs users (primarily to protect the Mac) that turned me against them.

Being out here during the formative years (the transition from 'Only Universities, Big Firms, & the Gubmint have Computers' to selling an IBM PC/XT to the author of 'the Color Purple' (I think Computerland charged her something like $5,000, all in...) <-- I didn't sell it myself, I was the guy who populated the 16K RAM motherboard up to a full capacity of 256K, not MEG, 'Kay'. Added a 20M Hard Drive, and an AST 'Six-Pack' w/ an additional 384K, for a total system memory (not storage, RAM) or a maxed out Six Hundred & Fourty Megs of Memory, most of it fabricated in some sweatshop in Barbados of all places...

We sold, and I soldered on, Apple IIs, inc the IIgs and the Lisa (they didn't sell well, but they didn't break either), and later at Businessland, we sold the the big black cube that Jobs came out w/ following his ouster from Apple by that Pepsi fella.

I remember those IIgs's, they were OK.

[jwhouk]

If you still had a NeXT out there and operable, there'd be people beating down your door for it.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

If you still had a NeXT out there and operable, there'd be people beating down your door for it.

But I thought people were beating down my door for my Commodore 64... you mean the commercials lied to me?

[TazManiac]

If you still had a NeXT out there and operable, there'd be people beating down your door for it.

Well, at one point I was a Vendor Authorized Warranty Repair Technician, but I enjoyed those stone-aged Morrows and Kaypros better. More hands on.

The cube was a beautiful show piece but we never saw anybody actually DO anything with one...

[AnotherFairportfan]

If you still had a NeXT out there and operable, there'd be people beating down your door for it.

Well, at one point I was a Vendor Authorized Warranty Repair Technician, but I enjoyed those stone-aged Morrows and Kaypros better. More hands on.

The cube was a beautiful show piece but we never saw anybody actually DO anything with one...

Pretty much an accurate assessment of any idea that Jobs came up with all by his little ownsome.

[GlytchMeister]

...
(I'm still trying to think of a car analogy for the loss of the headphone jack)

[AmriloJim]

Re: 3.5mm jack - The spirit of P.T. lives on...

[AnotherFairportfan]

Re: 3.5mm jack - The spirit of P.T. lives on...

I wonder if anyone has been taken in by that... Pretty sure we'll never know - they'll be too embarrassed to say it out loud, i suspect.

[AmriloJim]

Close to 10 million views of that video, and some of the comments sound like the siren song was effective. There's a response video in which the poster laments following the tutorial.

My favorite comment on the tutorial:

Since some people are still having issues, a bit of advice. The guy seems to have missed the part about cleaning the phone after drilling. In order to clean out the 3.5mm socket of debris from the drill you need to soak the phone in soapy water for around 15 minutes so all the drill shavings are loosened. Then give the phone a shake once you're done.

[AnotherFairportfan]

Close to 10 million views of that video, and some of the comments sound like the siren song was effective. There's a response video in which the poster laments following the tutorial.

My favorite comment on the tutorial:

Since some people are still having issues, a bit of advice. The guy seems to have missed the part about cleaning the phone after drilling. In order to clean out the 3.5mm socket of debris from the drill you need to soak the phone in soapy water for around 15 minutes so all the drill shavings are loosened. Then give the phone a shake once you're done.

That is even more wonderfully evil than the original video.

[Typeminer]

...
(I'm still trying to think of a car analogy for the loss of the headphone jack)

Removing the window regulators and the headlight switch. Because there's A/C. And the car can tell when it's in the dark.

[TazManiac]

One thing though; I've been around since before Apple was around, including Frog Design and the Great and Powerful Woz (Blessings of the Creator be upon Him), and I want to point out a few things while we're having fun piling on:

- Anybody remember that while it's consider gospel that Apple stole the use of a mouse and/in a Graphical End User Environment from Xerox's PARC 'skunk works', (and there's been some revisionary history going along w' the good-ol-story (These events taking place just a mile or two from my birthplace); they beat WinX to Market by a considerable margin.

- OS/2 (and then Win 3.1), and for that mater Win NT vs Mac OS (prior to the UNIX/Linux based OSX). Do your own look-em-ups.

- Anybody remember the IBM PS/2? Recall the PS/2 connectors? (like an S-Video mini-DIN, but slightly different.) Well, The OG Mac was using something like that prior to the PC guys climbing onboard.

- For that matter, recall Twisted-Pair Networking? (think regular telephone cord as your modern CAT-5/6 cable) You had to terminate the ends, w/ a RJ-11 connector that had a bare Resistor showing. (Cause we were raw like that, back in the day..)

- Variable FONTS on-screen, that printed out the very same as on-screen, and were expandable. I really mean it. Variable Fonts were a really big deal, we take them for granted these days.

These links that follow span a more modern list of items than the point I am making (re: personal experience with the Early Apple...); http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/29/apple-pr ... world.html

Here is a better list, although it's out of order, Chronologically: https://www.phactual.com/11-apple-innov ... echnology/

Aaaah; I forgot USB ports; http://bgr.com/2015/12/02/apple-innovat ... hnologies/

None of these were specifically Apple Innovations, but while being around, nobody was putting them into use in a large scale- until Apple led the way. Often to the Consumer Market's consternation, at least initially. I always said; "Well, thats a new market for some company, to make the New Stuff that will work w/ the New Macs..."

As a Tech, as a Mech, as an Inventor & Noodler, as a Support Person in the Market Place (dealing with the Consumer Angst of a steep Learning Curve for 'the Next Big Thing"), AND as a regular observer of all things being sold to me- I don't like the Closed System Approach. Nor the 'Our Way or the Highway', despite recognizing the benefits of a rigid adherence to OEM Standard that Industrial Partners had to deal with. There was some good that came from having to do it 'the Apple Way', sometimes.

I'm not sure what will become of Apple as a leader, complete with Arrows in the Back, without a Steve Jobs to forge a trail in unexpected & (seemingly) unrealistic (based on the status quo) expectations, going forward.
.