Introducing the rabble.ca app for iPhone, iTouch and iPad! And how you can win an iTouch!
Hey folks,
Today is rabble's 9th anniversary - and to mark we launched a free app for the iPhone!
In partnership with developer Spreed Inc., we are very excited to announce the launch of our iPhone, iTouch and iPad application. It is a whole new way of experiencing and interacting with the content on rabble.ca using your mobile device.
And more: Don't already have a device that can use the app? Follow rabble on Twitter this week and learn how you can win an iTouch!
You heard right! Follow @rabbleca on Twitter, and then retweet the following: "Follow @rabbleca and learn how you can win an iTouch, pre-loaded with the new rabble iPhone app!", and you will be entered into a random draw to win an iTouch. When we hit 200 RTs, we'll randomly draw the winner! (Note only one RT will be counted per Twitter follower).
For more on our new app for iPhone, iTouch and iPad click here
Just downloaded it. Good for the news bit of rabble but I want to see babble added or a separate babble app.
Why is rabble promoting the locked-down proprietary software world of Apple Computers?
When you create a software application for any of these "i" devices, you have to get Apple's permission in order to distribute it...and it can only be distributed via Apple's "app store". If you have an Apple device, you don't own it. You are merely a tenant on that device and can only do the things that Apple "allows" you to do with it.
Why would rabble see this as a good thing? Why is rabble buying into Apple's "digital restrictions management" schemes?
Rabble should be promoting a progressive approach to computing ...namely...software freedom, open devices and an open internet. Apple doesn't represent any of these things.
Corporations like Apple and Microsoft are the Alberta tarsands of computing.
See photo of Free Software Foundation's "Defective by Design" campaign picket at the Apple iPad launch
well said radiorahim. i was thinking the same thing when i saw the new "app". rabble is shamefully ignorant of freesoftware and the increasing piles of tech junk that iTouch giveaways help grow.
And new iTouches are made from oil from the Alberta tarsands!
Can't say I know about this...do you have a source?
"Smartphones" are the new general purpose computing platform. What the software/electronics conglomerates failed to achieve on desktop/laptop/netbook computers, they want to achieve on this new computing platform...where you have these corporations in total control of what you can and can't do with your devices.
And the "permission" that Apple has given for the rabble.ca app, they can take away at any time.
No. I just meant that they are made of plastic (i.e. oil). They're also made with sweatshop labour in China. I guess the hipsters at rabble who dreamed up this contest forgot about labour and the environment as they were so bedazzled by that cool touch screen.
I'll bet if you call them names, that will convince them of your point of view, Le T!
ok: Istooges.
Heh. :p
is hipster a bad name? i thought that it was just what you call left-leaning people with iPhones?
Well, I think it's generally an insulting term, yeah. It's generally used to describe people who care only about appearances, who only do things because they're trendy, etc. I'm not insane about Apple or Apple products, for the reasons radiorahim mentions, and I have no problem with opposition to this promotion, but I wouldn't describe my co-workers or myself that way as a result.
And implying that rabble workers don't care about the environment and labour is kind of a low blow, too.
Perhaps you could tell us what device you're reading rabble on so we can learn about all the electronics choices out there that aren't made by cheap labour with environmentally degrading products.
i read rabble on a used laptop off kajiji running Ubuntu.
Now if rabble started giving away re-furbished linux machines for a contest they might be onto something!
I agree with you entirely on the free software thing. But you weren't talking about software above. You were talking about hardware.
Was your used laptop made by well-paid union members in North America using environmentally-friendly products?
P.S. That would be an amazing idea for a contest. :) I will pass that suggestion along! Especially since our site now runs on free software (Drupal).
I could be convinced to do that...in fact Michelle would be extremely happy if there were a few less computers and computer parts around here ;)
Of course not. I did manage to divert someone else's computer from becoming part of the environmental disaster that we are inflicting on oppressed regions with our trinkets for another few years.
I don't get your logic. You think that because all electronics are made with bad enviro and labour practices that makes rabble's decision to give away new iTouches and support the spread of these products ok?
Would it be cool if rabble gave away a hummer that came with episodes of rabble tv pre-loaded on the DVD player?
As to the hardware...pretty much everything these days is made by sweatshop labour in China...we're all guilty.
I agree though...that there are alot of lefties who somehow think that there's something slightly "rebellious" about using Apple stuff. Nothing could be further from the truth. Jobs is a corporate tyrant who is the antithesis of everything rabble.ca is supposed to stand for.
ps- i would enter any rabble contest that might end with me getting a used linux machine!
I can see that George Gilder's laws of the telecosm are coming true. The network will become the computer or "teleputer." Infinite bandwidth will revolutionize our world. It feels like someone is telling me to get out of the road, if I want to grow old. Snot nosed brats anyway.
Hee. This is true (re: wanting less computer stuff around the house). ;)
Le T, I definitely take your point, though, about refurbishing old computers. You're right that it is way more environmentally-friendly to make an old computer run much longer on free software than to throw stuff away every other year and get new stuff that runs all the latest proprietary software.
That said, though, there ARE new innovations in technology that newer devices do that old ones don't. Are we killing the environment because of this? Yeah, we are. It's a difficult thing - do we want new innovations in communications? Sure. Do we want to pay the environmental price for it? Nope, I don't. And I know they're not mutually compatible.
Hey, that's a great idea, re: the Hummer! I'll pass that along! :D
(Kidding, kidding.)
I agree. At the current rate of consumption, scientists say we will need another couple of planets to supply the raw materials at some point. I think the world of computing will become a lot smaller in this next decade. Computer and memory chips will continue to shrink and become more powerful than ever. We'll have teleputers, and more powerful than desktop computing technology of today, in the palms of our hands.
The fundamental problem with the iPhone/touch/pad platform is that Apple has absolute control over what content gets onto the app store. That means what's available there is literally dictated by their whims, with no appeal. The most recent absurdity was when cartoonist Mark Fiore's app was rejected for "ridiculing public figures". See http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/04/apple-bans-satire/. There's a long history of apps being rejected and accepted apps being later removed based on random policy changes.
Given this, Rabble's app is going to have the sword of Damocles hanging over it for all time. Any updates you submit could get rejected because someone doesn't like what's showing up for content at that moment. Or they could just decide one day to take you out regardless.
I only glanced at the app, but I don't think there's anything you're doing on there that couldn't be done just as well with an iPhone-optimized web app. That route would also let you target other smartphone platforms with the same code.
The nightmare scenario here is one where a corporation controls what you can and cannot see on the internet. I can't imagine anyone at Rabble wants that, but that's the kind of world this new app is paving the way for.
One of those innovations is writing free software that is specifically designed to run on old computer hardware. There are dozens of "lightweight" versions of GNU/Linux that are designed for this purpose. For instance there's a version called "Slitaz" that fits into a mere 30 MB. I had a later vintage Pentium III computer with a defective stick of RAM in it. I was able to boot this computer and get it up and running because of the small size of this operating system.
In any case the proprietary software world will never write software for "out of date" computers. There's no money to be made.
Exactly!
On the Blackberry for instance...even though it uses a proprietary operating system (boo hiss) you at least can install web apps without them being "approved" by the Blackberry folks.
I quoted that only because it implicitly highlights the necessity to futz with hardware and software when trying to work on a non-standard system (i.e., I read "I was able to..." to really mean, "After several hours of futzing with this and that hardware and software, I was able to...").
I think a lot of people enjoy futzing around with hardware and software...the futzing, itself, is fun.
But, most people do not enjoy futzing with hardware or software (more precisely, they positively hate it). They simply want to surf the web, play around on their Facebook page, listen to music or watch video clips, send and receive email, etc. ... and they simply want their device to work with an absolutely minimum amount of effort.
For them, an out-of-the-box Mac, PC, or iPad works perfectly.
...like any other Intel system.
The point is that there is nothing special about Mac. Originally Macintosh looked towards creating a specialized product, especially in the area of high end graphic utilities, and up until 2005 even used the G series chip which allowed for higher speed execution of certain applications, if the applications were pre "futzed" to properly integrate with the Mac OS, and the G chip. Now of course the pre-futzing was expensive to do, and so elminating the Macintosh (Motorolla) specific hardware, and going over to Intel, meant not only that Mac could assemble its machines for cheaper, but also basically get them to run any Mircosoft application with the minimum of futzing, reducing costs there as well.
Now they are just as slow as any other Intel machine at running any standard microsoft product. In essence, they took the Mac brand, removed everything that made it unique, cut costs by going over to generic parts, and huge amounts of overhead caused by having to make popular programs take advantage of G chip features, and continue to market the their computers on the brand alone.
An absolutely classic case of a corporate cost efficiency hatchet job, designed to sell you an product that for all intents and purposes is no different than anything else, and then sell it to you at boutique prices.
In other words: Macintosh is Icandy,
Yeah, i always hate "futzing around" everytime i use Firefox.
I've installed linux (mostly Ubuntu and Debian) on many computers. It's just as easy as installing windows or OSX. In some ways it's easier because you don't have to install a bunch of stupid shit that you don't want or use only to have to remove it once the OS installs.
You should try it out Sven, you obviously never have. Ubuntu, for instance, can run off a DVD or memory stick so you can try it out without even having to install! It's an incredibly user-friendly version of linux and has a huge repository of software that is both free as in speech and free as in beer. You can litterally install a program at the click of a user-friendly-GUI-button (much like the "app store", but free).
The idea that linux distrobutions are for hackers and geeks is a lie that is employed by some unfree software giants to protect their gold. Even companies like Google are down with opensource and making heavy use of free(ish?) software in the forthcoming Google Wave. As michelle mentioned this website is run with free software. You are probably (hopefully) using Firefox, again free software. Your email might even be run on a linux server, who knows? My point is that this shit ain't just for folks like radiorahim tinkering with his pentiums.
I've used Solaris OS on actual Sun machines, and I don't think Linux or any other flavour of Unix is something I would recommend to technophobes. Get real.
I've been there, on the phone to Motorola techies in the states, and instructing junior and sometimes senior engineers for Nortel on not too far from basic unix setups and do a bit of scripting and hardware setup, a little bit of driver and software installs. And by the end of some days I was ready to pull my hair out. I was like that character at the end of The Wall song lyrics...
YOU! Yes, you behind the bikes shed, ssstand stull laddy!
I don't think that you know what you're talking about, Fidel. There are many distros of linux, all very different.
I would say that Ubuntu is easier to figure out and use than Vista. If you are a "technophobe" and, like Sven, just want to read emails, surf the net, write stories, edit photos, listen to music, etc. you don't have to do anything complicated. I installed windows and ubuntu on an older dell machine and ubuntu recognized all hardware automatically. Windows needed me to download drivers for graphics, sound, and usb cards. The sound card still isn't working right in windows.
I would encourage people just to try a user-friendly distro like Ubuntu. It's much easier than you would believe by listening to people like Fidel and Sven.
Yes, I know? There are several flavours of Unix, too. I'm familiar with most of them.
Okay, but now youre recommending one single Linux distro. Does it PnP with every printer? Does it plug and play with all fax-copiers? I'm impressed with Ubuntu's overall capabilities. But before I go installing it or recommending for someone who's not used to anything but Windows, I'd have to make a checklist of all the hardware they have and might expect to be compatible with the OS and drivers that work with the OS. I don't know very many technophobe who I could simply hand a copy of Ubuntu to and suggest they replace their Windows OS with it all by themselves.