April 2008 Archives

Anyone who has been involved with the "forbidden" osx86 scene, or the ability to run Mac OS X on generic PC hardware, likely knows the name netkas. Netkas created the EFI firmware emulator that brings the osx86 distribution of OS X closer to the real thing by emulating the EFI Apple uses in their modern hardware. EFI is Intel's replacement for BIOS, closely resembling OpenFirmware, that allows both the interface to hardware from the software layer as well as providing direction and configuration for said hardware. The EFI emulation layer has opened the doors for more graphics hardware support, booting from GUID Partition Table hard disks, and more. It also allows osx86 users with compatible hardware (Intel chipsets and Core Solos or higher) to use Apple's OS X kernel, rather than waiting for a hacked and patched version from the community.

A company called Psystar recently exploded into the news by openly announcing a commercially sold "hackintosh". They're offering what is essentially a white box PC, with off the shelf parts that match or closely match what Apple is offering in their hardware, pre-installed with Mac OS X 10.5. Their sales pitch is that they're effectively selling an expandable Mac, with more power than an iMac, for less than half the cost. They're bundling a legal copy of Leopard, the Netkas EFI v8 emulator, and Apple's bundled software, as a complete package. It's a license violation to do this, as Apple's EULA specifically forbids using Leopard on hardware that is not Apple-branded.

The funny part to this story is that Netkas is all pissed off that Psystar is using his EFI emulator in a commercial product. He has since re-released EFI v8 with a new license forbidding the use of the software for commercial purposes. Now, if anyone just noticed that, Netkas is pissed off that Psystar is violating his license agreement by bundling software that allows people to violate Apple's license agreement.

Right, then.

As I feared, Nokia has absolutely no plan or desire to upgrade a handset to a new S60 software release. I'm not sure how likely I am to buy Nokia my next time around, which annoys me to no end.

I really enjoy their phones, they are solid and well built. The Symbian operating system is easily one of the best on the market right now, but Microsoft is working very hard on Windows Mobile, and Apple's iPhone offers an unbeatable user experience. With the iPhone, you get vendor and provider lock in, and with Windows Mobile, you get Windows. Nokia doesn't concentrate very hard on the US market, with delayed US 3G releases, and my provider just doesn't care about Nokia at all.

Who knows what I'm going to get next. Maybe I'll be waiting for a Google Android device.

I have a great idea for a web application, something nice and bubbly for people to hook into.

A random number generator.

You get a certain number of uses per month. We hire three or four people to roll dice, and input the result into the system. Each API call shifts the next value off the top.

I'm going to be rich.

Those who know me are aware that I get very loyal to a brand when they treats me well. Many times, that brand loyalty doesn't make sense to those around me, and I've come to accept that, even if I try to convert people. I was a fan of Apple, even during their dark times, though that has waned a little bit. I am a huge Chrysler fan, though the past couple of years have been lackluster. I do blame that on Daimler.

I really love Nokia products, too. I've owned five of their handsets (3390, 3650, 6682, 9300, and E61i), and two of their internet tablets (770, N800). One thing that really drives me nuts about Nokia is their software updates, or their lack of software updates. Back before the 6682, it was impossible to get software updates for your phone unless you managed to find a Nokia Service Center, an impossible task in the United States, or you downloaded a pirated copy of their Phoenix software and managed to find a pirated release of their firmware. Last year, Nokia started offering software updates to consumers via their Nokia Software Updater, supporting all of the S60v3 handsets, N and E series handsets, and the last of the S60v2 series. They've even started including S40 handsets on a limited basis. Mind you, this was last year, and those with Windows Mobile smartphones have been getting major software updates for a few years now.

Since then, Blackberry has entered the consumer market after dominating the US business market, and Apple introduced the iPhone as a consumer smartphone, and when their 2.0 software comes out, will start taking chunks out of the business market as well. Both companies are offering major software updates after the hardware purchase, without requiring a hardware upgrade every time they add a major feature. Nokia continues to only offer bug fixes.

I really appreciate the fact that we get bug fixes and all of that, but with the new competition out there, it would really be nice if we weren't dropping over $400 on new handsets, only to have them obsoleted within a year. Whenever I bring this up on one of Nokia's blogs, it is either ignored, or a Nokia apologist starts talking about how the hardware matches the software or some other nonsense. It's like Apple fanboys, I swear.

I think I'm just ranting. But at least I took the opportunity to rant to Nokia Support. I have a strong feeling I won't get a good answer from them.