* Posts by Brendon McLean

5 publicly visible posts • joined 29 Oct 2007

Apple patents OS X Dock

Brendon McLean
Jobs Horns

Thank you Apple

Apple patenting the Dock is like news of someone patenting smegma. If only Apple itself could realise their "little baby" is actually more like a baboon's arse, then we could rid the planet of this travesty for good. Just what is the dock? Is it an application launch bar? Is it a task bar? Is it a place to store minimised windows (but not hidden windows)? Is it very confusingly all of those inelegantly tangled into one? Or is it just a gigantic pornographic platform for Steve Jobs to waggle his OpenGL layer in front of an audience used to 16x16 icons from planet ugly.

RIP Apple Human Interface Group.

High Court approves software patents

Brendon McLean
Alien

Sorry, this thought is taken. Pay $200 or go to jail.

Anyone who thinks the patent system protects little people needs to try and join in a monopoly game 4 hours into play when every utility and almost every street has four hotels on it. You'll be bankrupt before you pass "Begin".

The only solution I can think of is patenting the patenting of the bloody obvious.

Aliens because perhaps their prior art will save us?

Europe too cynical for iPhone

Brendon McLean
Boffin

More stats

None of the statistics arguments so far have factored in that US market is fragmented into the following incompatible standards (in order of market share): CDMA, GSM, iDEN, TDMA and NMT. CDMA still has substantially more market share and coverage than GSM.

Looking the markets again:

* Europe: One universal standard, with near complete coverage and almost one mobile unit per person.

* US: Three major standards that are incompatible, patchy coverage by GSM and a lower phones per person (about 0.8).

Taking this into account, the US market is actually a lot smaller for a GSM-only device. Which means that Europe as a percentage is more important than you'd think. Which means that these lacklustre sales in Europe are even more worrying for Apple.

Brendon McLean
Boffin

Addendum

In fact, according this article (http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/09/14/now_we_have_16_mobile_phones_each.html) there are 1.6 phones per person (active) in the UK.

Apple's Leopard rejects latest version of Java

Brendon McLean

Information vacuum

There have been a veritable flurry of posts on the mailing list this weekend. A lot of this ended up being a rather fruitless discussion on whether Java 6 is actually useful, but it did seem that most developers agree that Apple's communication strategy makes no sense whatsoever and simply fuels feelings of neglect and disrespect. Apple could end this whole ordeal with a simple one-line statement.

This article

http://buzz.vox.com/library/post/interpreting-apple.html

provides some hope in the form that this mess is likely to be best explained by corporate inefficiency rather than pig-headed arrogance.

Here's to hoping.