jsprinkles

Technically, the client did err, as it performed a request that is not legally permitted in its jurisdiction. For example, this response could be used for geographically-limited resources (such as BBC iPlayer), which means your client erred by not being in Britain.

If it's a takedown of some kind, your client erred by being subject to a government that ordered you unable to see the resource that you requested. The 4xx code fits, in this case, as 5xx implies the server made a mistake (it didn't).

Although I have my fair share of hesitance at worshiping cloud services, the fact that a service is "cloud" has nothing to do with the quality of its architecture. You can make a crucial architecture mistake designing a fleet of dedicated PHP servers talking to a MySQL cluster just as easily as you can building atop some cloud service.

Thank you, editing in to back up.

Best solution here would appear to be never sync that iPad again, back it up to iTunes, disable its Wi-Fi, and consider it her speech appliance. Don't update the OS, don't sync to iTunes, never do anything with it again aside from using it for this essential purpose. If you have to buy another one, restore it from your iTunes backup. These are the 'legal' avenues, clearly with jailbreaking it's simpler.

Unfortunate that a legal battle puts you in that position, but if this app is as important to her life as she says, she should be perfectly fine freezing that iPad where it is and not treating it like an iPad any more. It is now a dedicated appliance, not a general-purpose iPad. Buy another one for everything else.

Sucks, but, best solution given the circumstances, I think. Obviously, it'd be great if the circumstances changed.

(Edited to add backup.)

Even if Justin Beiber himself is clueless (and I don't think he is), the people around him are experts at creating a product that appeal to their target demographic. The most successful stars that, to you, seem to create shitty music are those that actually have the most clever people handling them.

Good points. I hadn't thought about it from a supply chain perspective or that of cannibalizing sales. That's definitely a consideration.

I used to edit video in Avid on a Mac Pro. Multimedia usages will drink memory like water, and your system being more powerful directly implies that you get more work done. Less render time is a big one.

To that end, I can understand some of the complaints.

Apple being as wealthy as it is implies, to the contrary, that it is not clueless.

My comment was a generality. For example, if Apple (or any company) tomorrow published:

    Q1 2013 (tentative)    iOS 6.1
    Q2 2013 (tentative)    Mac Pro update
    Q3 2013 (tentative)    iOS 6.2

Does that give competitors a leg up on them, genuinely? What does Apple gain from being secretive? Is it just status quo thought at this point that is keeping companies thinking secretively? I understand new products being a surprise, that's kind of cool, but does it hurt Apple to be a bit more open? Is there some competitive advantage I'm missing?

Say you're Dell. You see Apple is working on a Mac Pro update. Does that change your priorities at all, strategically? Does it matter to you? Now Apple working on a game-changer, that I understand, but a simple update? Why keep that secret? What do competitors gain from knowing every little detail of what Apple is up to?

I'm trying to figure out Steve's reasoning, since I'm not terribly versed in business, and this generally seems to be a business decision. It's especially epidemic in IT, where all of us are writing cool software, but nondisclosure prevents us from sharing with competitors except in special circumstances. So instead of advancing the state of the art, we're all reinventing the wheel because our prior wheel inventions are nondisclosured to the prior company.

I just don't get secrecy.

Does anybody else think secretive companies annoy customers more than open ones? A lot of bad feelings could have been avoided yesterday were this public information, without Tim having to e-mail someone to break it. There was a genuine rash of anger, obviously (from the HN coverage), and just taking a few moments to say what's in the pipeline, while very not Steve, would have made this situation a lot better.

It's not just Apple I've noticed this with. Maybe it's time we rethink secrecy from a product development standpoint? Does it really give your competitors an advantage to know what you're working on in the days of the Internet? Is this something that business types have put thought into, since secrecy seems to be the status quo?

I can understand new products entirely, but a simple update to their Mac Pro is something they could just say, publicly, with little recourse, to reassure its small (and dedicated) fan base.

Safe to say that the terrorists have won, if the first eight comments on something as cool as this have to do with possible ways the terrorists can destroy it. What a depressing new era.