leXicon5
Pelosi, SHUT YOUR Fing Pie Hole
Premium
join:2000-12-27
Saint Louis, MO
| Apple to charge to unlock 802.11n WOW....this ought to put some of your panties in a bunch:
»www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=2398
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"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" - David St. Hubbins
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The Dv8or
DSLReports Forums -- The Mouse House 2.0
Premium
join:2001-08-09
Danbury, CT
clubs: | Re: Apple to charge to unlock 802.11n Pretty ballsy, and how convenient to blame the government. Why not charge 99 cents and make it a download in iTunes?
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You're so vain... I bet you think this post is about you. | |
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hyperjoe
Premium
join:2000-11-03
Gates Mills, OH | considering many who complain about an apple product and fill out class suits because, "days later, the better and newer came out and we were not told", I can understand the charge.
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Have you considered the value of an enema? | |
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MacWin
join:2003-06-26
Imperial, MO
| Re: Apple to charge to unlock 802.11n At least they have a valid reason.
"I’m not going to claim to understand this next part, which really just makes no sense to me at all, but the claim Apple’s making is that it _can’t_ give you the 802.11n-unlocking software for free. The reason: the Core 2 Duo Macs weren’t advertised as 802.11n-ready, and a little law called the Sarbanes-Oxley Act supposedly prohibits Apple from giving away an unadvertised new feature for one of its products. Hence, said the Apple rep, the company’s not distributing new _features_ in Software Update any more, just _bug fixes._ Because of Sarbanes-Oxley. If this is an accurate statement of Apple’s position, which as an attorney (but not one with any Sarbanes background) I find at least plausible, this is really crazy."
»backstage.ilounge.com/index.php/···c2d-mac/ | |
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sporkme
drop the crantini and move it, sister
Premium,MVM
join:2000-07-01
Morristown, NJ | Re: Apple to charge to unlock 802.11n I call BS on the SO excuse. I've downloaded plenty of software from Software Update that has enabled features that were not there before. | |
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bbarrera
Premium,MVM
join:2000-10-23
Sacramento, CA
clubs:
 ·SureWest Internet
| Re: Apple to charge to unlock 802.11n said by sporkme  :I call BS on the SO excuse. SOX is causing ripples all over the universe, the excuse isn't that far fetched. Unfortunately I deal with SOX at work and it is a PITA.
Let's parse the 'excuse' for a solution...
quote:
According to the editor, the fee stems from a law called the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which supposedly prohibits Apple from giving away an unadvertised new feature of an already sold product without enduring some onerous accounting measures.
The solution is for Apple to advertise new yet currently unavailable features. Then no problem with later enabling those features via software update. | |
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MacWin
join:2003-06-26
Imperial, MO | Re: Apple to charge to unlock 802.11n "Unfortunately I deal with SOX at work and it is a PITA."
Makes me glad I'm with a private company. | |
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join:2000-10-05
Collegeville, PA | Advertising unavailable features is ALSO a violation. | |
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MacWin
join:2003-06-26
Imperial, MO
1 edit | Re: Apple to charge to unlock 802.11n "Advertising unavailable features is ALSO a violation."
Shhh the people on the front page thread might hear you and then what would they be able to bash Apple about. | |
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Michieru2
zzz zzz zzz
Premium
join:2005-01-28
Miami, FL | Re: Apple to charge to unlock 802.11n What's that???
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Maggs
Premium
join:2002-11-29
Woodside, NY | Re: Apple to charge to unlock 802.11n Easy enough
tell Application Airport
{give me my draft N}
end tell
Someone will find a way.
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It's a SYN, not to ACK your packets. | |
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RIRWIN1983
join:2005-08-30
Columbus, OH | then how did directv get away with sellng its hr-20 hddvr that had the connections for ota,network,ect... but did not work because they needed to be enabled via software updates once they got the outher bugs fixed. | |
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nolancj
join:2002-06-30
Long Beach, CA
| Re: Apple to charge to unlock 802.11n said by RIRWIN1983 :then how did directv get away with sellng its hr-20 hddvr that had the connections for ota,network,ect... but did not work because they needed to be enabled via software updates once they got the outher bugs fixed. This isn't really a debate of one company vs. another. It's how Apple has decided to manage the situation given their accounting policies. Maybe DTV has different policies. SOX does leave a lot up to interpretation by a given entity.
Also, DTV could also maintain that the monthly fee you pay for services is a subscription type service and hence entitles you to maintaining current product sets relative to hardware. | |
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93254336
Weapons Of Masturbation
Premium
join:2001-10-20
| said by sporkme :I call BS on the SO excuse. I've downloaded plenty of software from Software Update that has enabled features that were not there before. Precisely... so is Apple now also going to charge a "modest fee" for each SU?
- Dan
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"That which does not kill us makes us stranger."
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nolancj
join:2002-06-30
Long Beach, CA
| I'm in the software business. I can see the reasoning here. It could very well stem not so much from SOX (as it's called), but also existing contracts with gov't pricing schedules. This is a legitimate concern.
SOX rules prohibit you from selling "future features" with an existing sale. For example, if I were to sell you a piece of software, I have to represent what it does TODAY. I cannot give you "future" features. Most Software companies work around this with maintenance fees. You basically cannot sell what you do not have.
So, my guess is Apple is going to sell this as a new feature. Therefore, they can't give it away.
Stupid, but blame the accountants, Enron, MCI, and all the others that SOX came from.
said by MacWin :At least they have a valid reason. "I’m not going to claim to understand this next part, which really just makes no sense to me at all, but the claim Apple’s making is that it _can’t_ give you the 802.11n-unlocking software for free. The reason: the Core 2 Duo Macs weren’t advertised as 802.11n-ready, and a little law called the Sarbanes-Oxley Act supposedly prohibits Apple from giving away an unadvertised new feature for one of its products. Hence, said the Apple rep, the company’s not distributing new _features_ in Software Update any more, just _bug fixes._ Because of Sarbanes-Oxley. If this is an accurate statement of Apple’s position, which as an attorney (but not one with any Sarbanes background) I find at least plausible, this is really crazy." » backstage.ilounge.com/index.php/···c2d-mac/ This is a feature, something | |
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| | | yabos
join:2003-02-16
Ingersoll, ON
| Re: Apple to charge to unlock 802.11n said by nolancj :SOX rules prohibit you from selling "future features" with an existing sale. For example, if I were to sell you a piece of software, I have to represent what it does TODAY. I cannot give you "future" features. Most Software companies work around this with maintenance fees. You basically cannot sell what you do not have. Then how do companies give free lifetime updates to their software? For example Parallels. You buy it once and you get updates for life. All the new betas are adding features that weren't in the first version and they can get away with it. | |
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The Dv8or
DSLReports Forums -- The Mouse House 2.0
Premium
join:2001-08-09
Danbury, CT
clubs:
| Re: Apple to charge to unlock 802.11n The idea is that the software is not currently capable of doing things it can do in the future. The upgrade is an add-on after the fact in a development of doing something better, but you're not specifically hiding a current feature. It's also much more difficult to prove in software than it is in hardware.
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You're so vain... I bet you think this post is about you. | |
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nolancj
join:2002-06-30
Long Beach, CA
| Re: Apple to charge to unlock 802.11n There are 2 things here:
1. Maintenance fees are how software companies (larger ones mostly) sell new features.
2. Small companies (like parallels) will fly under the radar with regards to these issues. They're also not a public company.
SOX has created a paranoia within companies, espeically those caught in finance scandals, stock option issues, revenue reporting problems, inventory tracking problems, etc.
SOX requires that adequate controls be put in place to manage ALL of the financial reporting within an organization, and requires the officers of the company to attest to their accuracy.
What that has done is put Finance in control of many, many companies. A BAD thing in my opinion. A few bad apples (Enron, MCI, etc), have ruined innovation and freedom in large public companies, in my humble opinion. | |
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| | | | | tpeng
join:2003-01-30
Forest Hills, NY
clubs:
| $5 probably will barely (if at all) cover the transaction fees and administrative costs for setting up a system just to collect and account for these costs. In all likelihood, they'd lose money on the deal. It sounds as if this went up the wrong chain or someone raised an alarm from legal and given that they are currently under the SEC's magnifying glass for screwing up recently, they are not taking any chances.
Of course it's silly, and Apple has to know that it will get nothing but bad press out of it. In other circumstances, they probably would just release the software upgrade simply as adding "compatibility with the new Airport extreme", like the WPA upgrade. | |
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sporkme
drop the crantini and move it, sister
Premium,MVM
join:2000-07-01
Morristown, NJ
 ·Optimum Online
| said by The Dv8or :The idea is that the software is not currently capable of doing things it can do in the future. The upgrade is an add-on after the fact in a development of doing something better, but you're not specifically hiding a current feature. It's also much more difficult to prove in software than it is in hardware. How about firmware updates on DVD burners that increase the max burn speed? Drive is advertised as 2x, update makes it 4x. | |
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93254336
Weapons Of Masturbation
Premium
join:2001-10-20
| Re: Apple to charge to unlock 802.11n said by sporkme :said by The Dv8or :The idea is that the software is not currently capable of doing things it can do in the future. The upgrade is an add-on after the fact in a development of doing something better, but you're not specifically hiding a current feature. It's also much more difficult to prove in software than it is in hardware. How about firmware updates on DVD burners that increase the max burn speed? Drive is advertised as 2x, update makes it 4x. Here's an idea: how about a $5 upgrade fee for the patch which will change the US Daylight Saving info to the new 2007 dates?
- Dan
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"That which does not kill us makes us stranger."
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acadiel
Keep trying - don't give up
Premium
join:2002-06-22
Bloomington, IL | Re: Apple to charge to unlock 802.11n This patch is going to wind up on so many websites so fast that its going to be funny... | |
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Coma
neuro anomalist
Premium
join:2001-12-30
Nirvana-Land
clubs:
| Re: Apple to charge to unlock 802.11n said by acadiel :This patch is going to wind up on so many websites so fast that its going to be funny...
. . . . But they still have to put it into the fine print to make it legal in the eyes of Big Brother.
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| | | | russotto
join:2000-10-05
Collegeville, PA | Parallels, Inc. is privately held, thus SOX doesn't apply to them.
Apple's unlikely to go private, but it's not impossible. They'd need some deep-pocket investors. | |
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| | | JimF
join:2003-06-15
Allentown, PA
| said by nolancj :Stupid, but blame the accountants, Enron, MCI, and all the others that SOX came from. Put the blame where it belongs. Sarbanes-Oxley came from Congress, and the President that signed it. | |
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| | | | | russotto
join:2000-10-05
Collegeville, PA
| Re: Apple to charge to unlock 802.11n quote:
Tell you what. Tell all those people that lost their retirement funds from Enron, etc that SOX is not a good idea, that there needs to be compliance.
If people got cheated by New York's "Crazy Eddy" and the feds responded by nuking New York, would you blame the nuking on Crazy Eddy? | |
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zeromips
Premium
join:2006-10-02 | Meh, its only $4.99, dunno what people are getting so freaked out about. | |
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leXicon5
Pelosi, SHUT YOUR Fing Pie Hole
Premium
join:2000-12-27
Saint Louis, MO
| Re: Apple to charge to unlock 802.11n said by zeromips :Meh, its only $4.99, dunno what people are getting so freaked out about. You do know the crowd that you're referring to right? They don't flinch when the iPod they want is $499 but whine and moan about a product they have not seen yet...
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"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" - David St. Hubbins
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M A R K
Premium
join:2001-06-15
Long Island
clubs: | Lame garbage... | |
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Daniel8802
join:2004-07-09
Sewell, NJ
clubs: | Re: Apple to charge to unlock 802.11n its coming from appleinsider .... | |
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russotto
join:2000-10-05
Collegeville, PA | If it's a choice between not giving away any more new features and risking Federal "pound me in the ass" prison, management will kill or charge for the features every time.
Time to hoist the Jolly Roger for third party 'n' users, I think. | |
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Thinkdiff
Premium,MVM
join:2001-08-07
Bronx, NY
| I'm sure there will be third party apps that do this in no time. Apple just needs to charge to cover their asses. Look at the iBook G3/G4s for example. They were not advertised to have Extended Desktop, but a OpenFirmware hack was released that enabled it without any problems.
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University of Southern California - Class of 2010. Fight On! | |
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HiVolt
30
Premium
join:2000-12-28
Toronto, ON
clubs: | Bah im sure the day the new AEBS hits the market, that enabler will be spread via Bit Torrent in a flash.
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I ignore all ignorant posts. | |
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tokevino
Rain
join:2001-12-03
AZ
| Normally, a company would just force your to buy a new draft-n card for $30~40, if not more.
$5 is reasonable to let Apple recover the costs of transaction and accounting and keep the share holders happy as well.
Don't listen to what front-pagers have to say: they have no idea what they were talking about.
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ross
join:2000-08-16
·Digizip
| Frankly, it's analogous to Telcos charging a "Regulatory Recovery Fee". It is totally made up, doesn't relate in any demonstrable way to real cost, and/or costs are so tenuously associated and nebulous, they amount to zilch. Furthermore, "n" capabilty is an existent feature of the hardware that has been previously disabled, not added, and the hardware has already been paid for. It's like wanting to charge an additional fee to purchasers because a new use has been found for any existing, already purchased product. How many purchasers of handheld "massage" devices are going to be charged for the unadvertised x-rated capabilities inherent to the hardware when users apply it to the "right" software patch? | |
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tokevino
Rain
join:2001-12-03
AZ
1 edit | Re: Apple to charge to unlock 802.11n said by ross :Frankly, it's analogous to Telcos charging a "Regulatory Recovery Fee". It is totally made up, doesn't relate in any demonstrable way to real cost, and/or costs are so tenuously associated and nebulous, they amount to zilch. Furthermore, "n" capabilty is an existent feature of the hardware that has been previously disabled, not added, and the hardware has already been paid for. It's like wanting to charge an additional fee to purchasers because a new use has been found for any existing, already purchased product. How many purchasers of handheld "massage" devices are going to be charged for the unadvertised x-rated capabilities inherent to the hardware when users apply it to the "right" software patch? IT is IT, accounting is accounting. You didn't advertise it? then the feature didn't exist. Just like you always expense R&D costs regardless what you did.
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| | ross
join:2000-08-16
·Digizip
| Re: Apple to charge to unlock 802.11n said by tokevino :IT is IT, accounting is accounting. You didn't advertise it? then the feature didn't exist. Just like you always expense R&D costs regardless what you did. BullShit is BullShit (I spelled it out for you so you won't be confused by the acronyms being hurled about the pasture). Incremental upgrades to a particular piece of hardware's firmware to enable already existent capabilities is NOT the same as providing an advertising to sell a new device with previously unavailable features. If I didn't rely on a non-existent claim of future enhancement of the hardware I was purchasing at the time of purchase, why should I have to pay additional money if a firmware upgrade enables a previously disabled, unadvertised innate capability of the hardware I have already paid for????
Have you never heard of incremantal enhancement of hardware via firmware upgrades? Have you ever owned a router? Have you ever bought a video card that later was able to be enhanced by updating its firmware to enable previously disabled features of the chipset, and providing more processing capability than was advertised?
Apple either should provide the patch for free, or enable the full capabilities of the product from the outset. The reason they didn't is because "pre-N" is not a salable feature until a standard is approved. So asking people to pay extra for a capability before it is an approved standard, isn't going to fly, and you can't advertise a capability as a feature if it relies on unproven, unapproved, and possibly changing, pending standards. This action they've taken is just an attempt to backcharge for hardware already purchased, and paid for. It should have been provided as a nice surprise for Apple's customers, instead of the means to pump Apple's bottom line. It certainly doesn't cost $5.00 per capita to provide the patch for download. | |
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ArchAngel21x
MacFan Pro
Premium
join:2001-10-28
Lincoln, NE
·Internet Nebraska
| My indifference to this plight stems from the fact that 1) I don't need the 802.11n standard, 2) $5 is already cheap, and 3) Apple is just trying to follow the law. To qualify my statement, I want to add that my reaction would be the same if it was Microsoft or another computer company.
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Happy new year! | Proud owner of a Mac Book & iPod Nano | A preview of OS X 10.5 | |
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MysticGogeta
The Robot Devil
Premium
join:2005-03-14
League City, TX
clubs: | If this was Microsoft, dell or who ever I would be pissed. The fact of the matter is why should you pay for someone else's mistake?
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Team Discovery-Join the fight | |
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login name
Premium
join:2000-08-11 | This move by Apple doesn't surprise me at all. | |
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wilbilt
Pronto Resurrected
Premium
join:2004-01-11
Oroville, CA | They distribute security patches for unadvertised future exploits at no charge...
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We were taking a vote when the ground came up and hit us. | |
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Homunculus
Pipsquack
Premium
join:2000-12-14
Dar al-Harb
clubs: | Gee, Apple finding another way of milking their customers. Well I'll be.
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Islam is a hate crime: »www.thememriblog.org | |
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Paladin
Sage of the light
join:2001-08-17
Chester, IL | They should just take Apple private already. | |
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