posted by Cannonball
on Monday January 27, @01:09PM
from the back-in-black dept.
jonknee writes "iCommune, the iTunes plug-in shut down by Apple legal, is returning in a slightly (much more functional) form. icommune.net has the scoop. The next version will be standalone but will have Rendezvous support (the big thing everyone wanted). Thanks to Apple legal, iCommune got tons of free publicity. Who wants to bet this will be a hit? " The question is, did the developer just stop asking Apple for permission to innovate, or did Apple give the go-ahead? Besides, weren't we promised iTunes Library sharing over networks by January or so during Steve's keynote at Macworld New York last year?
If the developer decided to tell Apple to shove it, and they might well have, then this may be a big step for the Apple developer community, who feel they have enough of a platform to work without a developer relations group. Either that, or the developer relations people at Apple decided to allow iCommune, either because the developer's figured out something that's gotten internal Apple developers stuck or because Apple's close enough to release its patch this Saturday when iLife comes out.
by
Anonymous Coward
on Tuesday January 28, @05:29AM (#7292)
This just occurred to me last week. Here's how to turn iTunes into a (somewhat limited) file sharing system without adding a thing.
It works best on a LAN or a company network. If you work with hundreds of others, this is a lot of fun. I already have a few Mac OS X users where I work doing this and it's great.
First turn on Web Sharing in the Sharing control panel. Make a folder in your Sites folder called "tunes." Then, in iTunes' preferences, tell it to store your music library in ~/Sites/tunes/.
Distribute your local machine's site to co-workers (i.e., http://[your IP here]/~yourlogin/tunes/). Now you have a live web site available to any users on your local network that is constantly updated to reflect your music, and makes that music availble to download via the browser (so even lame-dick Windows users can join in the fun of downloading from your music collection.)
Hopefully, your co-workers will have the presence of mind to join in. The more the merrier!
BTW, this is probably possible on OS 9, but who cares. OS 9 sucks my rod.
by
Anonymous Coward
on Tuesday January 28, @05:32AM (#7293)
Nazi's are associated with racists. Communism is just an economic model. The correct correlation, would be fascists, not Nazi's.
I'm not an anonymous coward -
Jon Hess
*rolls eyes* if you're going to "bitch" about other people's use of words, try making sure you understand what the they mean first eh?
OK so the words "communism" and "commune" come from the same root word, but then so do "commute", "communicate", "community" and "common", do these words upset your red-neck sensibilities too? no? thought not.
Whatever your personal reaction to the word, "commune" has little or nothing to do with failed Soviet political experiments of the 20th century. Its inherent connotations are all positive ones to do with sharing and co-operation, which is perfectly appropriate given the app's function.
"Nazi" on the other hand is an abbreviated form of the German for National Socialism, and has nothing but the obvious (negative) political connotations.
by
Anonymous Coward
on Tuesday January 28, @06:28AM (#7300)
If Apple just wanted to kill all filesharing on the Mac they'd be going after Limewire before iCommune. How? Does Limewire specifically violate a developer SDK agreement?
So obviously this move protects iCommune from Apple I think you mean protects Apple from iCommune.
by
Anonymous Coward
on Tuesday January 28, @09:57AM (#7303)
errr.... troll.
Who peed in your (look at me, I'm international... aren't my parents proud?) coffee?
Let's see... Entourage, for one, switches time zones when you travel. It, of course, lets you choose which time zone the meeting is in. I find it an incredibly efficient way of working... not just for travelling, but also for scheduling conference calls with other time zones.
As soon as Apple adds the ability to choose which time zone you're scheduling in... they've got a hit. Until then, I'm doing a cludgy workaround. I'll click on the clock & open up Date & Time, change my time zone to the desired target... schedule my meetings... then go back home.
Get on the ground at my destination, change the time zone on my laptop, and then re-sync my Palm. Everything is good.
Respectfully, get over yourself.
ever heard of a little thing called exchange? heard of it, but can't remember what it is. an email program or something I thought. How do exchange users deal with this timezone problem?
- gagging for a sig -
okay so I got a little overzealous perhaps but this has been driving me nuts, what can I say. I have come close to missing flights because of this 'feature'. i agree tho, if apple provided some way of adjusting the timezones of the various meetings then it would be a useful feature. but right now it's just a bug that needs a cludgy workaround.
- gagging for a sig -
"Besides, weren't we promised iTunes Library sharing over networks by January or so during Steve's keynote at Macworld New York last year?"
The answer is...
... NO, Apple did not promise iTunes Library sharing over networks by January, or on any other date. If you go back to your keynote videos of Mr. Jobs at MacWorld New York last year, the "iTunes music sharing" demonstration was a Rendezvous technology demonstration, and nothing else.
by
Anonymous Coward
on Monday January 27, @07:16PM (#7419)
It's obvious to me that Apple just wants to make sure that some people don't get the wrong "impression" that iTunes promotes illegal file sharing. Apple has already taken a pro-consumer stance on the whole digital copyrights issue, and I don't think they want to get iTunes involved in massive legal battles with the RIAA. As an iTunes user, I would like to see Apple avoid just this sort of problem so that they can focus on improving their software.
Apple will never put file sharing, into iTunes, and that does seem to be a major function of iCommune, so I don't see where all this talk about "Apple trying to stomp out a competitor" is coming from. I get the impression that the people writing these articles are more bitter about Apple's treatment of third party developers than the developers themselves. Just my $0.02.
I agree that Apple should allow you to enter information with a time-zone included. After all, a time all by itself is incomplete, since time is relative based on your time-zone.
BUT, let's say I enter my departure from and arrival time to my home city, then I depart at the scheduled hour, and I fly 2 time-zones west. My arrivale time at my home city will say that it's two hours early. Well, um, that's because it's showing it relative to the time zone that I'm in. Which is a perfectly resonable choice for the calendar to make.
I agree that there is a problem using it. Apple's main factor for many users is its easy-of-use. If someone can't just intuitively know how to use iCal, then it's in bad shape. But the factor remains that iCal does what a calendar SHOULD do, it just has a stupid default (putting all events scheduled into the local time-zone, rather than specifying it yourself)
As I was reading the link, there seems to be three cases of ways that events should be handled (this is based off what I understand the posters to be expecting iCal to work)
Events should have a time-zone attached to them, entering all events as if they were in the local time-zone is a bad thing to do. But these events need to time-zone shift. (Say, I've scheduled the Super Bowl for 4pm MST, if I go over to Texas, I need the time to shift an hour earlier, or else I'll miss it!)
Some events should be entered exclusively in the "home time-zone", which is selectable. There are business men that do all of their work at EST, PST, aut cetera. Regardless of where they actually are.
Most things should be entered in a time-zoneless mode, where the entry never shifts at all. If you change time-zones, then the event stays at the time that you scheduled it for.
Now, this would be the ideal solution. But here's the problem, that 3rd choice, even though it is the most common choice, and is the most expected behaviour is a technically wrong behaviour. (Similar to saying that the moon's phases are caused by the shadow of the earth) But here's the thing. Do you keep the "wrong" behaviour just because people expect it? Or do you actually attempt to fix people's behaviour?
It's a choice Apple has made. Not to include the "wrong" behaviour. And I'm not going to discuss it any further, because it's off topic, and Apple has made their choice, and it's incredibly easy to demonstrate that that behaviour is wrong from our modern viewpoint, and is just a hold over from people thinking the wrong way. Frauen machen Alkoholiker.
The meeting shift according to the timezones. It's arguably not a bug, since this is how meetings should move.
bull-fucking-shit. if you travel and use ical to enter your flight details when you book your flights then why the hell should iCal move your return flight time by an hour? If I make an arrangement to meet up with someone in london while I am in amsterdam, i expect to just enter in the time that my meeting is, to hell with what timezone it's in, i am going there. if it is indede a feature then for fuck's sake why don't apple provide an option to tell the stupid iCal what timezone the meeting is in?
no other calendaring software I have ever used moves my meetings around. it's a bug pure and simple, and one apple refuses to discuss. it's been there, and been bitched about since version 1.0 of ical and apple have done sweet fuck all about it.
no, iCal is rubbish for people who travel. it may be fine for peolpe trapped in a single timezone, but for me it is a waste of time.
by
Anonymous Coward
on Monday January 27, @02:23PM (#7432)
I think Apple would've used (and will use) any legal means, SDK license or otherwise, to keep iTunes from being associated with file sharing software.
Right, and now iTunes won't be associated with file sharing. If Apple just wanted to kill all filesharing on the Mac they'd be going after Limewire before iCommune. Apple just wanted to avoid any implications that their software supports illegal file sharing. So obviously this move protects iCommune from Apple, and more importantly protects Apple from the RIAA.
The meeting shift according to the timezones. It's arguably not a bug, since this is how meetings should move.
The main complaint of the people seems to be that they do bussiness, etc in their home time-zone only, but they still use time-zones to determine the local time zone.
This is probably because as one said, Palm calendar doesn't shift events based on timezone. Thus, even though your Palm says it's in Chicago, all calendar events are absolute (time-zone less) and do not alter their time if you change time-zones. (which is technically the more accurate action) Frauen machen Alkoholiker.
This isn't a flame.. but did the person that posted this bother to read the original story? and did they bother to read this story?
Here's the deal. iCommune used an iTunes plug-in (which is supposed to be used for hardware only) for software. Apple shut them down because they violated the plugin agreement.
iCommune after talking with Apple decides to make it a standalone app, which means they aren't using the iTunes plug-in.
Apple was peeved that they were using their plugin in a way that was in violation of the plugin agreement. That's all. Apple was just affirming its legal right, not trying to shut down iCommune. In fact, they probably gave iCommune some tips for how to do this without violating the plugin agreement, because Apple does care about developers.
good lord, i understand that mr icommune was in breach of his licence and good on him for making a new version that is not so constrained. good on him for gpling his new code too. now if apple could just get around to stopping meetings shifting in ical when you change timezones those of us who travel will be much much happier.
- gagging for a sig -
I think it's because there is a SLASH in the name that people feel the articles must be posted with a anti- point to them even though it has nothing to do with the content of the post.
Like a rock and roll physicist once said, where ever you go, there you are.
