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Apple fanatics don't care what you think

Apple fans lining up outside the Boylston Street Apple store

As Chris shows us, there were already people lined up outside the Apple Store on Boylston Street at 12:50 p.m. today to make sure they are among the first to get Apple's latest thing when it goes on sale tomorrow morning.

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From the "Get a Life..." desk!

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Attention Citizen's Connect. Many people loitering in front of closed store - it's past 2AM. Please have BPD investigate and ticket offenders.

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Happy Software Freedom Day!
https://fsf.org/blogs/community/happy-software-freedom-day

This Saturday, September 20th, people everywhere are getting together to celebrate free software. Install parties, encryption workshops, hackathons, you name it. Here in Massachusetts, FSF Web developer David Thompson is running a getting-started workshop for F-Droid, the free software app repository for devices running Android-based operating systems like Replicant
https://www.fsf.org/events/event-20140920-sfd-dave-thompson-f-droid
https://f-droid.org/
http://www.replicant.us/

Wondering what to do for Software Freedom Day? Take a page out of Dave's book and share your favorite free software application with a friend. What better way to celebrate than exercising freedom 2 of free software's four freedoms with your community?
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

If you're on GNU Social or Pump.io or even Twitter, tell us (@FSF) which application you're sharing with the hashtag #SFD (see our thoughts about Twitter)
https://www.fsf.org/twitter

This is the eleventh year of Software Freedom Day, and people are holding events in almost 100 countries. Thanks, everyone involved for reminding us how active, creative and inspiring the free software movement is. However you choose to celebrate, have a great Software Freedom Day!
Zak Rogoff
Campaigns Manager
https://fsf.org/blogs/community/happy-software-freedom-day

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Think any of those morons want to see a picture of the lovely cabana and infinity pool that my brother just had built at his seaside manse, thanks to these lemmings?

"Another smoothie, bro?"
"Sure!"
"You know, they just gave me me use of the jet every two weeks so I can come back and see my kids!"
"Nice!"

Bundle up, suckers!

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It's not like Apple makes any more money if you wait out in front of the store instead of coming in at a reasonable time. (Yes, it's free advertising, but so is just telling people you just got the new iPhone.) The iPhone 6 sounds like a decent device, so if people want to buy it, good for them. And if people have nothing better to do than hang out in front of the store before it opens, then why not let them have their fun.

You might in some more general sense say that they're promoting a broader attitude of consumerism which profits the rich. And yeah, maybe. But precisely because this is a form of consumerism which is constantly mocked on sites like this, it's not a particularly insidious form of consumerism. What you need to worry about isn't the people who every now and then sit in front of an Apple Store, but all the miscellaneous crap regular people buy that they don't need. A smartphone is a pretty useful piece of machinery, in the grand scheme of things.

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It's gonna be a bit chilly tonight, so I'm considering going down there and letting them use my old Android phone, which has been doing everything their new iPhone does* since, like, four years ago. Just to help them pass the time, and maybe get them acquainted with all the iPhone's "new" features.

*Well, everything except potentially sending your fingerprint to Apple and their good friend and partner, the NSA.

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Android users are obsessed with iphone users; whereas iphone users are utterly unconcerned about android users. Get over it!

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...from iphone users. Not remotely obsessed, mostly content to ignore, then your chorus grows louder. We respond and... voila! we're labeled obsessed. You want an impartial opinion, go ask those sad souls still clinging to a Blackberry and ask them which users won't shut up about how superior they are to the other, Apple or Android.

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My chorus grows louder... huh? I don't think you understand.

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going to roll up in your Model-A, which has been rolling on 4 wheels from point a to b for like 110 years?

Also, do you know anything about how the tech actually works? Because the fingerprint data is localized. Google is actually more likely to do things you don't like with your data.

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My phone's fully rooted and I shut off almost all automatic sync services. I can't get updates easily, but whatever.
Aaaand your fingerprint is still digitally stored and thus vulnerable. It's not "supposed to" be sent out, but then I wasn't "supposed to" see Jennifer Lawrence's vagina. If Apple changes their EULA to say that fingerprints may now be transmitted in some cases, are you going to decline that update? Or even read the EULA?

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for you, but the majority of consumers who are buying smart devices want the automatic sync features to some extent, regardless of what brand or OS they run. Also, most of them don't take advantage of how open Android is, so they use those phones in the exact same way iPhone users do, which defeats your original argument.

And on the off chance that they decide to change the EULA to collect that data, you can bypass it and use a traditional passcode.

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... and contagious.

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that's one or two years old on a brand new model, despite the fact your present car runs perfectly fine and that the newer car has no real improvement in functionality over the one you're currently driving?

Because this is exactly the type of wasteful behavior the Apple-cultists have when it comes to the iPhone.

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Technology rivalries are so cute. I'm having a nostalgic moment here, remembering the glory days of the Mac/Windows "wars".

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When VAXen walked the earth...

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I love my iPod and don't have any ill will towards Apple; Steve Jobs seemed like an ok dude, but the cult-like fans creep me out. Just watch one of those iphone unveilings... it's like you're waiting for them to start speaking in tongues and handle live snakes.
I'll admit that when I was little, I waited in line for 6 hours to buy Super Mario Bros. 3 at Child World. But come on; that was Super Mario fuckin 3. This is just a phone.

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.

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Ford vs. Chevy.

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Proof the superior format doesn't always win out.

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I'm pretty sure some of these people are paid to drum up hype. Since the original Iphone, I have never had trouble getting a hold of an iphone the next day without waiting more than 20 minutes.

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I can assure you, these people are not paid by Apple to do this.

However, for the past few years, Gazelle has provided the first few people in line with all sorts of swag including folding chairs, hoodies, and blankets, and has actually paid for their phones in exchange for being a human marketing campaign.

Also, a lot of the people that wait all night are paid by resellers to do it, because there is a HUGE business for them at the start when products are constrained, especially when selling them overseas.

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Last time there were dudes from the kiosk in the Pru that buys phones doing cash exchanges right there for old devices. Really good deals, too. That kiosk is my one stop shop for selling.

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I've gone on that line for a few hours to nab an Apple device or two. It's no big deal sleepwise, it's exciting, and it's fun to talk to the other people in line. Some are just as excited as you and some are there purely for the monetary gain in turning around a few for a quick profit. Last time some guy asked me to buy a few and sell them to him since there was a "two per customer" limit. I wasn't going to do that with a total stranger but I'm surprised there's still money to be made there with so many other countries getting iPhones at the same time or soon after we do.

I guess "haters gonna hate" but really, it's just a goof to do every few years. And if you think that's bad, you should see the lines at San Diego Comic Con for the most popular talks.

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Oh, Boston is so sleepy. Folks have been living outside the Apple store on 5th Avenue in New York City for over a week. Or, paying TaskRabbit.

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Folks have been living outside the Apple store on 5th Avenue in New York City for over a week

Ummm... that's nothing to boast about! Be you though.

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I normally preorder but a few times I've stood in the lines. I met a professor from Argentina in one and had some great conversations. The lines are an event and fun thing to do if you have time.

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Free Software Foundation statement on the new iPhone, Apple Pay, and Apple Watch
http://www.fsf.org/news/free-software-foundation-statement-on-the-new-ip...

by Free Software Foundation — Published on Sep 09, 2014 02:14 PM
http://www.fsf.org/about/staff-and-board

The Free Software Foundation encourages users to avoid all Apple products, in the interest of their own freedom and the freedom of those around them.
Today, Apple announced new iPhone models, a watch, and a payment service. In response, FSF executive director John Sullivan made the following statement:

It is astonishing to see so much of the technology press acting as Apple's marketing arm. What's on display today is widespread complicity in hiding the most newsworthy aspect of the announcement -- Apple's continuing war on individual computer user freedom, and by extension, free speech, free commerce, free association, privacy, and technological innovation.

Every review that does not mention Apple's insistence on using Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) to lock down the devices and applications they sell is doing an extreme disservice to readers, and is a blow to the development of the free digital society we actually need
https://defectivebydesign.org/what_is_drm_digital_restrictions_management

Any review that discusses technical specs without first exposing the unethical framework that produced those products, is helping usher people down a path that ends in complete digital disempowerment.

Keep a tally of how many reviews you read today mention that Apple threatens anyone who dares attempt installing another operating system like Android on their Apple phone or watch with criminal prosecution under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Keep a tally of how many reviews mention that Apple devices won't allow you to install any unapproved applications, again threatening you with jail time if you attempt to do so without Apple's blessing. Keep a tally of how many reviews highlight Apple's use of software patents and an army of lawyers to attack those developing a more free computing environment than theirs.

We've seen several examples since the last Apple product announcement of times when smartphones and other computers have been used for political activism and important free speech. We've also seen several examples of times when such expressions have been censored. If we continue allowing Apple this kind of control, censorship and digital "free speech zones" will become the permanent norm.

There is a reason that the inventor of the US's first internally programmable computer shuns Apple devices as antithetical to vital kinds of creativity
http://impossiblehq.com/an-unexpected-ass-kicking

But it's not enough to just say "Don't buy their products." The laws Apple and others use to enforce their digital restrictions, giving them a subsidized competitive advantage over products that respect user freedom, must be repealed.

At least the watch did end up having a clasp so you can remove it -- we were worried.

We urge users to investigate ways to support the use of mobile and wearable devices which do not restrict users' essential freedoms. Such projects include Replicant, a free software fork of Android, and F-Droid, an app repository of exclusively free software for Android
http://www.replicant.us/
https://f-droid.org/

People should also let Tim Cook at Apple know how they feel.
https://fsf.org/campaigns/apple

Share
http://www.fsf.org/share?u=http://www.fsf.org/news/free-software-foundat...

http://www.fsf.org/news/free-software-foundation-statement-on-the-new-ip...

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what if i feel that tim cook should ignore the fsf and keep on using all kinds of drm. should i still let him know how i feel

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Thanks, freetard. Take your RMS evangelism and go back to defectivebydesign with your spam and complaining about how DRM in ebooks is the humanity's greatest crime.

And yes, it is nothing but spam. These nerds started spamming this crap everywhere mere minutes after the new iPhone announcement. Anything for attention

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Lemmings

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