The Official Match Thread: Stoke City Vs Liverpool. (Premier League)

My iPad belongs to the company I work for. It's simply that I was interested in what pool fans were thinking about the game while it was on and left it on this post while I was watching the tv. Are you really to daft to understand this?

 

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(won't bother me, I don't really venture off the Liverpool board)

 

Fackin WUM

 

youve got mail

 

He's more taking the piss out of the fact you have a product of apple. Here's why he's taking the piss:

Think different.

That was Apple’s simple yet effective war-cry when Steve Jobs made his triumphant return as CEO of the computer company in 1997.

And it worked. Apple was brought from the brink of bankruptcy to profitability by 1998.

Looking at the armies of loyal Apple apostles queuing up outside Apple Stores in their thousands last Friday, eyes wide, drool slipping from the edge of their mouths like the redundant iPhone4 charging cables they abandoned at home, the irony was palpable.

iPhones are the most popular smart phone on the plant. Different doesn’t enter the equation.

The lingering concept that angelic Apple is somehow different to other big corporate money grabbers is peddled by the company. But there is evidence that Apple isn’t quite as nice as it makes out.

Steve Jobs once mocked Google’s motto “don’t be evil,” implying that they were in fact, evil. Pot, kettle, black?

Is Apple evil? Here are a few things to consider.

1. Signing your life away with Ts and Cs.

You don’t need Richard Dreyfuss doing a dramatic reading of the Apple terms and conditions to realise their maleficent nature (well, maybe you do if so listen to him here).

But because so many of us fail to read them at all, the insidious intricacies are lost in the maelstrom of small print.

An update will appear on your screen eg. - “iTunes Terms and Conditions have changed. Before you can proceed you must read & accept the new Terms and Conditions.” All you have to do is tap agree. And that’s all most of us do.

But there are updates which can trip you up.

For example an iPad update from last year gave permission for Apple to automatically debit people’s cards for downloaded items (such as magazines) which may appear to be free but it later transpires were merely free to trial.

Then there’s the iBooks license agreement. This EULA (end-user license agreement) stakes a claim to whatever you create using the software. It’s like Microsoft wanted a cut of a deal you made using PowerPoint. The only place you may sell something created in iBooks, through Apple. Apple deems whether it is worthy of sale, if so, they will take a cut. Nice.

2. Apple knows exactly where you are

As we have already established, iPhones are the most popular phones on the planet. Last year, some plucky security researchers realised that the iPhone keeps a track of where you are and saves the details of your meanderings in a file, which is transferred to your computer when you sync.

The iPhone system was recording these details whether or not you had agreed to this. Disgruntled partners everywhere must have been saving a ton on private investigators.

The bug has apparently been fixed…for now.

3. Apple pays a miniscule amount of tax

Okay tax avoidance isn’t evil but it is, to borrow the powerful words of our esteemed chancellor, “morally repugnant.”

As we reported back in April, Apple pretty much pays its tax bill from the change its finds down the back of the couch at 1 Infinite Loop. In the last tax year Apple made £6bn in the UK yet coughed up a miniscule £10m on corporation tax.

According to research by The New York Times, Apple’s global tax rate was 9.8 per cent, 24 per cent is reported to be the average for large multinationals.

Some have argued that Apple should be applauded for its deft tax strategy which increases profits for shareholders. No doubt HM Treasury feels slightly differently.

And you can’t try to argue that Apple is pulling some kind of Robin Hood trick. CEO Tim Cook is going to have to work quite hard to rid Apple of its less-than-charitable reputation. Steve Jobs famously cancelled all of Apple’s philanthropic exploits when he became CEO and not until very recently did the company publically give any of its profits to good causes.

4. One word: Foxconn

Foxconn is the Taiwanese company that Apple outsources the manufacturing of its hardware to. You’ve probably heard of it because Foxconn is a regular performer on the headline circuit.

This week we heard about a massive riot which took place in the company’s Taiyuan factory in which 79,000 workers reportedly clashed in violence. According to Foxconn the dispute was of a personal nature and nothing to do with work, Apple has declined to comment.

But the story is just another black mark against Foxconn which has been accused of poor working conditions leading to employee suicides.

A New York Times expose in January accused Apple executives of bragging about their Chinese minions behind the scenes and lying about the conditions of the factories in public.

One particularly sad tale to emerge was that of Sun Danyong, an engineer who had an iPhone prototype stolen from him. The shy young man told friends he had been beaten and humiliated by security guards, and committed suicide before his next interrogation.

There is no suggestion Apple is responsible for what happens at Foxconn, but there is clearly more the firm could be doing to promote healthy working practices. Only consumer pressure, applied via our wallets, will sting the firm into action.

5. Apple REALLY doesn’t like competition

Apple has a habit of blocking apps. Not because they are rude. Not because they are offensive. But because they pose a competitive threat of some description.

You might remember the fuss when Apple pulled all Google voice-enabled apps from iTunes back in 2009 because they “duplicated features on the iPhone.”

“In other words, Google Voice — one of the best things to happen to telephony services in a very long time — will have no presence at all on the App Store,” wrote TechCruch journo Jason Kincaid.

“If there’s ever been a time to be furious with Apple, now is it.”

It’s not just gigantosaurs like Google, Apple is willing to block out of its universal iTunes network for purely personal reasons. In 2008 Apple blocked the release of a video game called Glupod, which allowed players to turn winnings into food for starving people – because it sounded too much like iPod.

Sorry about that people of famine ridden nations.

Oh and Apple really doesn’t like anyone else fixing your computer.

So much so it has designed its own screws which render everybody’s regular screwdrivers useless. Oh and once you’ve insalubriously got your hands on an Apple screwdriver (don’t tell us how you did it but well done), you can’t get a cheap standard hard drive. Only Mac ones will work.

Cha-ching.

6. Oh and of course, Apple will take over the world by 2041

Well, if this video created by a guy called Ming in Hong Kong is to be believed.

[video=youtube;Ih8DsXAZgNM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih8DsXAZgNM&feature=player_embedded[/video]

Thanks to: http://www.londonlovesbusiness.com/business-news/tech/six-reasons-to-stop-buying-apple-products/3503.article

 

Ze Liverbird
I really don't give a monkey's what you don't like so have a great New Year. You still typed a pile of **** and my use of CAPITALS was intentional...
Now I shall return to the STOKE board and GLOAT. I don't see any reason why I should not.

Good luck for the rest Ze Liverbird with a defence that leaks quicker than a watering can, you will need it!

 

toodle tits and all the breast

 

We have major problems scoring goals & have had this for a while. Still scored ten more league goals than Stoke (28 & 18) though. Okay, Stoke have only conceded 14 to our 26 (league leaders Man Utd have 28 against) but how boring must it be at the Britania most weeks?

 

Boring
We just won 3/1

Toodlepips

 

What do you think this is? a match day thread?

Suarez seemed to be the only one trying for you tonight.

 

Nothing new there bud

 

Now who's being bitter

 

All too a familiar story although Lucas always puts a shift in too but he's still regaining match fitness...

 

Any team should do better than United in terms of goals conceded! Don't bother comparing anything and any team to them as they have shown consistently this season that they have to let in several goals before they get going and winning in the end. Only 6 teams do worse than them.

 

Fair point...

 

Just proved you can't take it son.

Which is strange, because that's the exact opposite of what DDDDDD says about you

 

I couldn't care less I didn't pay for it.. Errm.. although I did pay for my daughters Ipad .. ****!

 

Not bitter Gerrard,
Just made me smile when you said "How boring must it be every week at the Brit"
We both move onwards mate, and I think both of us upwards.

 

Oh my word some t*t has started up a NEW account just to wum, wot a loser

ps, hash , as Im sure you will ahve guessed I havnt said anythin negative about you, i think ur a thoroghly sound chap

However hash, you must feel honoured that some moron, has spent minutes of his life setting up a new account to attempt to wind you up, even if he is a tad strange.I dont envey u in ur job hash with idiots like this around

 

The Natural order has now been restored! Karma aye.............................