That 'Cloud Computing' Thing

Lately, I've been hearing the phrase 'cloud computing' pop up more and more often, with many companies practically capitalizing on the term's almost viral success. The Palm Pre boasts a 'WebOS'. Google plans to release a 'cloud OS'. OnLive streams games from the 'cloud' to your computer. With so much hype surrounding the phrase, one might think there's a new religion forming around it.

I am, of course, also interested in this. Cloud computing is an interesting, efficient, and powerful concept. In a nutshell, it means having a server hold storage, run programs, et cetera, said server being accessible from a portable, less powerful computer. Who doesn't like the idea of having massive amounts of storage for media and reliable programs from a cheap, portable computer (such as a netbook, or even an Internet-powered phone). I just don't like how it's being implemented currently.

There are benefits of cloud services. Because there is a company maintaining the services for the customers, it means that bugs can be patched quickly with no interaction necessary from the user. Viruses would be nonexistant. Even if your computer is completely obliterated, you can still access your data from any computer with Internet access. The list goes on and on. But every cloud has a silver lining (and I apologize for such an obvious pun).

Every cloud service is exactly that: a service. You pay a subscription fee to use the server, with only a legal agreement that they will leave your data private. Which they don't fully, by the way. Want proof? Open up an email on your Gmail account, and look at the ads. Then look at the context of the message. Tell me how private you think your messages are.

The main problem is that cloud computing requires people to give up control of their data to a third party; the company that you're paying the service for has total control over the usage of the data you upload to their servers.

On the Internet, privacy is hard to come by. We are tracked by cookies from marketing companies, by IP addresses logged by every website you visit, and 'cloud computing' takes even more privacy away. How willing are you to let your privacy be siphoned off? Is the accessibility of cloud computing worth the lack of privacy for you?

Why Can't Apple Write Decent Windows Programs?

If there's one thing that I hate on my Windows machine, it's iTunes. It's slow. It's bloated. It has a mismatched theme and an often-glitching interface. The only reason I have it on my system in the first place is because that's the only way I'm able to put music on my iPod Touch.

Yet.

On my school's iMacs, iTunes is zippy. The music management system is easy to use, simple, and has very aesthetically-pleasing animation/graphics. It looks amazing accompanying the rest of the Mac theme of brushed metal.

The same rings true with another Apple-to-Windows program, Safari. On Windows, Safari runs far, far slower than even Internet Explorer 8 (LifeHacker Link: http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2009/06/cold__warm_starts.png). On a Mac, the new features render beautifully and speedily, such as that tab overlook tool. I mean, the scaling renders nearly instantaneously.


So what's the big deal, Apple?

I can reason it down into three things; Accidental, Apathetic, and Designed, respectively:

1. The porting of code from Mac OS X to Windows deteriorated the quality of the program.
2. The programmers decided that it wasn't worth their time to make sure the program worked as well under Windows as it does under Mac OS X.
3. Apple makes the Windows versions run worse so that people think that Mac OS X just runs better.

To be honest, I think it's a combination of the three. Porting code isn't perfect. But once the errors and sluggishness came up, the programmers didn't spend time to fix it because if it looks like the Windows version runs slower and more bugged out, then more people will think that the Mac version runs better because Apple computers are better, somehow.


Not to be cynical, but damn. That's a good business strategy. Much unlike Microsoft's blunder to sell Microsoft Office on Apple computers, something that I'll touch upon in a later post.