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I submitted this but of course it doesn't get promoted as that would interfere with the Google distortion bubble happening here:

http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/19/2961128/google-chief-java-architect-likely-i-copied-sun-code-in-android

I beleive the Skype engineers said that the WP7 notification system wasn't responsive enough to be useful - so no, it can't almost certainly be done on WP. http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/29/2832590/skype-windows-phone-background-limitation

It's in all the articles :(

http://www.phonearena.com/news/Skype-for-Windows-Phone-goes-out-of-beta-final-version-released_id29363
http://blog.gsmarena.com/skype-for-windows-phone-no-longer-in-beta/
http://www.technobuffalo.com/companies/microsoft/windows-phone/skype-for-windows-phone-drops-beta-tag-but-still-wont-work-in-background/
http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/22/2967087/skype-for-windows-phone-version-1-0-final

No inside info here sorry.

I did not know the Microsoft deal had the precondition to dump Meego/Tizen, I figured it just had the precondition to produce a WP7 phone.

But I do not think the rumors of two new Nokia MeeGo phones would persist at all if Nokia had the precondition to dump Meego; although it appears the rumored phones will at best have the MeeGo GUI and run S40.

A little Google searching on the topic does not reveal any such agreement to abandon Meego, at most Nokia agreed to make Windows Phone its primary platform, do you have a sources to clarify that Nokia has to kill all in house MeeGo development? I hope I have not missed something: paidCOntent, Telegraph, CNet, The Next Web, Microsoft.

But I am sure that it is wishful thinking to think that Nokia will drop Windows Phone and get back behind MeeGo in full force any time soon, if ever...

X is part of the name and has always been. The official name used to be "Mac OS X" until recently, and the upcoming version is officially named just "OS X":

http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/16/2802281/apple-officially-renames-mac-os-x-to-os-x-drops-the-mac

http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/3/2921472/lumia-900-review

It seems reviewers are anxious for a third ecosystem to emerge so the keep making light of the shortcomings. This is ~2010 era HW power, with an OS that was aimed at the original iOS and hasn't caught up to the competition. People need to stop making excuses for the Weak HW, and weak SW. Microsoft/Nokia, need to seriously revamp the OS and release a real flagship if they want to be anything but irrelevant.

Verge Excerpt(on the software itself):
Let me just put this bluntly: I think it's time to stop giving Windows Phone a pass. I think it's time to stop talking about how beautifully designed it is, and what a departure it's been for Microsoft, and how hard the company is working to add features. I am very aware of the hard work and dedication Microsoft has put into this platform, but at the end of the day, Windows Phone is just not as competitive with iOS and Android as it should be right now.

The problems with Windows Phone are myriad, many small. But it's a death by a thousand cuts. And all those little problems were once again immediately apparent to me the moment I started using the Lumia 900.

The most glaring issues also happen to be some of the oldest issues — things you think at this point would have been dealt with. Scrolling in third party apps, for instance, is still completely erratic. I would blame this on developers, but given that this platform has been around for nearly two years, I think that's a cop out. In new Twitter apps like Carbon, lists of messages will sometimes disappear or skip weirdly when scrolling. I first complained about this in version 1 of Windows Phone, and I thought it had been squashed — it has not.

Elsewhere there are missteps. Though Microsoft has added some form of multitasking to the OS, there is nearly never a feeling that apps in the "background" are actually still waiting for you. In fact, many apps still deliver a splash screen to you when you reenter them — if this is a developer issue, then I guess most of the hardworking coders on this platform never got the memo. In short, it kind of sucks to use. Where iOS and Android at least feel responsive in packing and unpacking background apps, Windows Phone often comes across as broken and limp. ....

why don't you provide a link to the headline you mention.. is it this one?

http://www.theverge.com/2012/3/14/2870374/new-ipad-apps-larger-size-retina-display

"The applications developed by Apple have been upgraded to support the Retina Display. For example Keynote was previously only 115MB but its latest version is 327MB. Numbers is up from 109MB to 283MB, Pages moves from 95MB to 269MB, and iMovie from 70MB to 404MB." (Translated from Vietnamese)"

iMovie is the only one that went up over 5x.. and that's because they added a new feature called Trailers. there's built in themes with animations and music so most of that increase is the stored audio/video assets.. it was NOT a straight retina bump - else it wouldn't have been demo'd in the ipad keynote. you can't compare the current and previous version because they're not (feature wise) the same app. garageband also got bigger.. from 600MB to almost a 1GB I think.. but that's because they added string instruments and the ability to "jam" with other people and record all 4 tracks in the app. those string loops are big.

here's the info about Trailers for the desktop version of iMovie - all the same features are in the iOS version.
http://www.apple.com/ilife/imovie/#movie-trailers-section

the pertinent copy from the appstore
Create movie trailers
  Choose from nine new trailers with immersive graphics and original scores by some of the world’s top film composers*
*Trailers are available on iPhone 4 or later and iPad 2 or later. (probably because of RAM constraints)

the "CMX-HD" format that Comixology and Marvel are using now caused a noticeable increase in file size.. but of all the titles I have, they average increase is about 3x.. and the ones I have (pre-HD) were around 20-25MB, now they're 75MB.

3x may seem like a lot, but look at the difference. (photo by Andy Ihnatko)
https://twitter.com/#!/Ihnatko/status/180865456389885954/photo/1
(note the paperclip in the foreground)

Here's something about the developer:
http://www.theverge.com/gaming/2012/3/21/2884331/redemption-derek-smart-flame-line-of-defense-battlecruiser-3000AD

If "work" means only 454,000 subscribers total, compared to Spotify adding 1.5 million customer to a total of 2.5 mil, or Hulu reaching 1.5 mil customers in a year... I don't think it's working for NYT.

That's 2001 think. How much revenue has Hulu gained from those 1.5 mil customers? Volume doesn't help you if you aren't making an average profit per customer. Lexis Nexis and other such firms have relatively small customer bases, but generate a large amount of revenue per customer. That's 2012 think. At least for the majority of new companies that will still be around in 2016.

If "work" means only 454,000 subscribers total, compared to Spotify adding 1.5 million customer to a total of 2.5 mil, or Hulu reaching 1.5 mil customers in a year... I don't think it's working for NYT.

This past weekend between Friday and Sunday, Apple sold 3 million new iPad units (aka the iPad 3). Looks like customers made the decision of buying an integrated system over a DIY system. And honestly, who cares? Apple has gone to great lengths to produce a device that efficiently crams electronics and a battery into something that's 0.37" thick. Why would I want to mess around with that?

Apple has never claimed that they invented the tablet. They claim they own the design patents of their tablet in that Samsung's phones and tablet looks too much like theirs. Notice that they have not sued others for design patents and they are specifically suing Samsung for certain models.

Then why did Apple start (and then lose) a design lawsuit against Spanish tablet maker NT-K? It's not that their products are even remotely similar, are they?

RT.

http://www.winsupersite.com/article/windows8/windows-8-consumer-preview-call-common-sense-142476

Also, try to spend a few minutes learning shortcuts etc. before dissing the experience. It's not a SP for Windows 7, it's a new OS.

http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2012/02/getting-starte...

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2012/03/windows-8-tricks-tips-and-s...

And it will enable many devices like these that don't exist now:

Idea Pad Yoga: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz2R9y9ZvkA&hd=1

Samsung x86 Tablet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8-K1ELv6DE&hd=1

Try doing that with an iPad.(There are iPad-like ARM Windows 8 tablets too that won't run x86 apps but which will have Office).

83inch displays: http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/29/2833173/windows-8-82-inch-...

All these form factors tied in the with the vast Win32 ecosystem(except ARM tablets) and a single Touch-first Metro ecosystem.

It's interesting how the comments on Apple/iPad/Post-PC articles, financials of Apple/Dell/HP etc. state that "MS is dying in the Post-PC" era, but now when they come out with a solution to make a OS run on different form factors and to have tablets that are not just consumption devices, the comments on here are skewed towards "Why change something that works?". If PCs are really dying, why not attempt to fix that instead of standing by with their head in the sand(like RIMM)?

There will always be people unhappy with anything you build or change. They should just go with their vision of what they think is right and that's what they did. They envision that with Windows 8, most new monitors will be touch enabled because of the demand so that for some functions(like clicking on links), people can use touch.

You may disagree with the vision, but you can't disagree that there is a method behind the madness.

Damn recoiledsnake you have some sick l33t first posting skillz..three minutes from time TFA was posted to RTFA, write all that preparing all of those hyperlinks. An Impressive feat to say the least.

http://www.winsupersite.com/article/windows8/windows-8-consumer-preview-call-common-sense-142476

Also, try to spend a few minutes learning shortcuts etc. before dissing the experience. It's not a SP for Windows 7, it's a new OS.

http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2012/02/getting-starte...

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2012/03/windows-8-tricks-tips-and-s...

And it will enable many devices like these that don't exist now:

Idea Pad Yoga: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz2R9y9ZvkA&hd=1

Samsung x86 Tablet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8-K1ELv6DE&hd=1

Try doing that with an iPad.(There are iPad-like ARM Windows 8 tablets too that won't run x86 apps but which will have Office).

83inch displays: http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/29/2833173/windows-8-82-inch-...

All these form factors tied in the with the vast Win32 ecosystem(except ARM tablets) and a single Touch-first Metro ecosystem.

It's interesting how the comments on Apple/iPad/Post-PC articles, financials of Apple/Dell/HP etc. state that "MS is dying in the Post-PC" era, but now when they come out with a solution to make a OS run on different form factors and to have tablets that are not just consumption devices, the comments on here are skewed towards "Why change something that works?". If PCs are really dying, why not attempt to fix that instead of standing by with their head in the sand(like RIMM)?

There will always be people unhappy with anything you build or change. They should just go with their vision of what they think is right and that's what they did. They envision that with Windows 8, most new monitors will be touch enabled because of the demand so that for some functions(like clicking on links), people can use touch.

You may disagree with the vision, but you can't disagree that there is a method behind the madness.

Nothing will. This has been the case forever it seems.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/3/8/2855744/google-play-in-app-payments-wallet

Since antennas have military applications, it is getting attention. This article describes one interesting approach.

Schmidt actually brought up Bitcoin himself. Full quote:

6:36 pm Q: If it comes to real democracy, payment has to be peer-to-peer. Would you like to know about my technology called FairCash?

6:37 pm A: Are you familiar with BitCoin? There are some issues with peer-to-peer money. In most cases it's illegal, besides that it's a great idea. We had our own proposal called Google Bucks, but we didn't want to get into these issues. Most of these systems will have reguatory
issues.

The wifi model will still use the Tegra 3. The LTE model will use the Snapdragon http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/27/2827588/asus-transformer-pad-infinity-series-and-transformer-pad-300-series

I would like to point out this article http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/27/2828283/sources-apple-not-pulling-evi-app-working-with-developers-to-avoid which among other things states that "... the app remains in the App Store, and according to sources familiar with the matter, Apple is attempting to work with the developers on bumping out those similarities, rather than just pulling the product." Anyway it seems that Apple may have reconsidered their position on this, which is probably a good thing for the small guys.

and apple will have a hard time selling itv in the uk. If they where to name there apple tv Itv.

So it's a good job that Apple haven't even confirmed that they are making a TV, let alone what it will be called.

Also, the newspaper claim that ITV had contacted Apple to warn them off has been disputed - although I believe it was briefly an issue some years ago when the Apple TV STB was first announced.

Disregarding all that, yes, iTV would be a spectacularly bad name to use in the UK - even legally - because its a household name that has been associated with the second largest TV channel since the 1950s even though the current company is fairly recent. They have already ventured into IPTV with their "ITV Player" service (there's an App for that). Also, if you read the Wikipedia article on ITV you'll see that the "ownership" of the name ITV is far from simple, and acquiring it would be a can of worms (quite probably involving the UK government).

Oh, and since ITV Studios sell shows worldwide, its a fair bet that the trademark is registered in other countries, too.

All that is rather a far cry from buying the trademark rights to the name of a specific, obscure (or possibly discontinued) product.

Plus, most people could eat a can of Alphabetti Spaghetti and puke a better name for a premium-priced television set.

Some of the screenshots on Verge show Ubuntu TV. http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/21/2812663/canonicals-ubuntu-webtop-environment#3028281

It has already been said that Office will come out of the box on Win8/ARM - so the price is $0.

adobe won't support flash

Chevron 2011 profit = $26.5
Apple 2011 profit = $25.9 B
The difference is, Chevron will consistently post high profits, Apple is a bubble waiting to burst.

Your numbers are incorrect. If you just go straight to Apple's earnings statements and Chevron's earnings statements, you could quickly see that Apple posted $32.98B in profit in calendar year 2011 (i.e. Q2 2011-Q1 2012), whereas Chevron posted $26.8B in the same period (i.e. their Q1 2011-Q4 2011).

Granted, the AC you were responding to is an idiot, is clearly incorrect, and is trying to justify mistaken things he said by twisting words, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't get the numbers right. ;)

As for your comment about Apple being a bubble that's waiting to burst, the irony is that Apple has shown a willingness to reinvent itself in recent years, making it more resilient to said bursting, whereas Chevron is a company with an obvious countdown hanging over it as most of the world calls for less dependence on its chief product.

I just found an interesting tool for visualizing Apple's earnings as I was researching this comment, and if you click on the "Revenues by segment" button, you'll see that the vast majority of Apple's money is coming in from sources that didn't even exist 5 years ago, let alone 10. Apple was plenty healthy when the iPhone debuted, and was even healthier by the time the iPad came out, so if one or both of those suddenly dried up, I suppose the bubble would have burst, but Apple would still be a player in a number of other markets.

In the more likely scenario that the iPhone simply became less desirable, Apple would have plenty of opportunity to adjust. It was reported a few months back (during a quarter where iPhone sales were dipping due to anticipation of the iPhone 4S, no less) that Apple is bringing in over 50% of the profits in the cell phone industry (that's for all cell phones, not just smart phones, mind you), despite their 4% market share in that market. That leaves them with a pretty big cushion for adjustment if something changes.

Even so, no company can continue an upwards trajectory forever, so it is inevitable that Apple will eventually fall. Given recent history however, I doubt it will be soon, though I wouldn't be surprised if their growth declines over the next few years, if nothing else. The iPad is in a good position to do well in the tablet market, and the tablet market is set to outpace the overall PC market within the next few years. That alone should ensure that they do well for awhile, assuming that the iPad continues to do as well as it has been.

As for Chevron, they're working on reinventing themselves, but big oil isn't exactly known for leading the way. And, just as their product took ages to be produced, so too does that industry seem to take ages to change itself.

The WaPo article is nothing more than sensationalist journalism, designed to foment controversy for the sake of attention and readership.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/11/how-data-heavy-is-siri-on-an-iphone-4s-ars-investigates.ars

http://gigaom.com/2012/01/27/siri-is-not-a-bandwidth-hog-and-users-are-not-the-problem/

http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/27/2753694/siri-isnt-ruining-your-cellphone-service

And from my own personal experience as someone who has used an iPhone since the very first model, I have not found that Siri has noticeably increased my data usage. Other types of data access are far more intensive, such as streaming video and music, as well as sharing images/video taken with the iPhone's camera.

oh yeah ? and then where is that self-perpetuating, end-of-hollywood idea ? it has been more than a decade since internet has entered living rooms. where is that idea ?

apple does not have the means to catalogue all spendings of almost every western citizen on the planet, and link those spending directly to their identity. if they had it, maybe they could do it.

There's apparently more truth than I realized to the saying "never argue with an idiot, they'll only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience". Rather than acknowledge any of the actual trends that are occurring around you, you instead shoot from the hip of your wonderfully insightful gut and instead respond with "oh yeah? prove it!" ?

Well, after this post I guess it's up to the mods, because I'm done with this bullshit you're trying to perpetuate.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/9/2693228/ubuntu-tv-has-unity-inspired-ui-will-ship-on-televisions-by-end-of
Unity, on TV sets, by the end of this very year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_TV#Second_generation
Apple TV second generation sales (Good thing SOPA blackout is over)
http://reviews.cnet.com/apple-tv-review
Apple TV Reviews

http://www.google.com/tv/
http://googletv.blogspot.com/2011/01/samsung-and-google-tv.html

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/from_ces_a_few_hints_about_the_future_of_tv.php
CES 2010: Apps on smart TV's, "The Future of TV"

You're on the fucking internet for god sake, use it to get learned.

We just got done with a well-constructed, well-reasoned, well-executed protest against SOPA and PIPA, and we killed those bills dead as a *direct result*.

That simply has not happened.

The sponsor of SOPA has recently also pushed new anti-childpornography laws through the house and congress, in preparation for attaching SOPA as a rider.

He has already admitted the ONLY problem with the last SOPA was that he let the public know about it, giving them time to express their dislike, and has stated he learned from that mistake.

As in, the damaging effects, the destruction it will cause, and the fact people are against it, he doesn't see any of that as a problem. Only that the public had time to counter it.

This time next year, SOPA *WILL* be law.

* Note I am not arguing in favor of DDoS either. You are quite right in that such attacks have not helped anything one bit, and are not part of any functioning solution.

That's basically what former senator Chris Dodd (Now MPAA Chairman) said in a statement he made. My favorite part was "Dodd blames the bills' reduced support on a slow timeline that allowed opposition to mobilize" which translates to "Congress should have just proposed/voted/passed the bill before anybody could get a look at it".

Anonymous claims to have taken down DOJ and MPAA sites in response.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/19/2719527/anonymous-claims-doj-and-record-label-site-takedowns-in-response-to

Absurd. Android's fragmentation looks like this. It's not reduced at all, nor do you explain how it's reduced. To the contrary, the business model for many of these companies is not to support a model of phone with updates but instead make you buy a new model six months later. That's why top-selling Samsung phones that are only months old won't get Android 4.0.

You state that Google "actually removes fragmentation" because they give away a free OS, but you don't explain how that is true. We're not seeing what you are claiming should be happening--what we're seeing is that each company is doing exactly what Schmidt is describing, customizing the OS with their own software and selling phones with large differences in hardware capability. That is the fragmentation.

Your premise is based on the idea that everybody is selling stock Android phones. Motorola Mobility's CEO explained at CES that carriers don't want stock Android phones because they don't make a profit. He said, "Verizon and AT&T don't want seven stock ICS devices on their shelves...The vast majority of the changes we make to the OS are to meet the requirements that carriers have."

There is no reduction in fragmentation; the exact opposite is true.

Rim should be selling these for $99!

They did make them available to their employees at that price.

I happened to know a guy who could hook me up, and ended up getting one for the wife for Christmas (a little more by the time I paid shipping and a few other things). Figured at that price, she could have a tablet/e-reader.

They're clearly losing money on the transaction, but it was a good gift idea.

Quit arguing over whether or not the charge is justified. It doesn't HAVE to be justified. Either you're willing to pay it or you're not.

None of the posts about the hazards of autopay concern justification. Many of the posts here concern what people are willing to pay, and how they come to those decisions. There's a sizable contingent of people distressed about gouging, which is a sloppy verbal surrogate for the dislike of pricing based on power rather than economic linearity, likely derived from hard-won experience that dealing with corporations drunk on power works out badly in the long run. Some of these posts could be more articulate about the philosophical foundation, but few are so worthless as to deserve your backhand dismissal.

Somewhere some verizon bean counters ran all the hard math that factors in their actual costs, in terms of providing the service, loss of business, handling angry phonecalls, bad press, etc, and figured this was a net-win, and so they did it.

So you're the reason that the Streisand effect is mentioned fifty times in every story about someone suing over publicity they didn't want. It turns out, in reality, that many drunk-on-power corporations perform this calculation rather badly. There are actually people out there who benefit from fifty reminders. Who knew?

If you're willing to pay for it, they're justified in charging for it. Nothing else matters in the business world.

Cell phone networks have powers bordering on monopoly, which is illegal for a good reason. Duopolies (and septopolies) often end up in price collusion, and there are plenty of lawsuits to recover cartel damages, though many egregious examples go undetected or unpunished.

From LCD cartel case claims seven more scalps:

Seven LCD screen makers have joined together to offer $US553 million to settle charges that the screen industry has acted as a price-fixing cartel.

You don't seem to grasp the difference between capitalism and commercialism. Commercialism is grasping after every available dollar by any means possible, however tawdry:

Apple fined $1.2m in Italy for misleading warranty claims

Apple was fined ... by the Italian Antitrust Authority today for failing to properly inform customers of ... legally-mandated two-year warranty ... [and instead] selling overlapping AppleCare coverage.

Capitalism (as founded on free-market principles) is where all the participants in a marketplace have low barriers to choice, and exercise choice to their best advantage with great energy, driving the engine of wealth creation. Asymmetric power relationships are good for commerce (on the side that holds excess power), bad for capitalism and the wealth of society. If these were the same thing, monopoly would be legal.

One of the things Verizon is trying to do here is fly under the radar of rational ignorance. One of the reasons Slashdot exists is to make flying under the radar a damn sight harder. Yet for some reason you've decided that collective disgust is the prattling of small minds. Is commercialism the largest idea in your personal quiver? How sad.

Hardly anything says drunk-on-power better than undermining choice mechanics. Unfortunately, willingness-to-pay bumps up hard against locked-in service contracts. Bait and switch is another great commercial tactic to defeat choice mechanics: it looked OK on the day you signed up, now it sucks to be you.

When the customer has real choice, the market has discipline. Without discipline, the market has trillion

Here is the original Verge article that the submitted link is based on. Looks like Gizmag literally just took the Verge's information and reworded it to avoid plagiarism, but it's all the exact same information and about the same length. Even the photo is the same, just slightly cropped to look different.

Okay, I'll admit that the article is very high in troll content but, as someone who has spent plenty of money on Apple products over the last 6 years, let me add that I'm getting more and more disgusted with their behaviour and I won't buy anything else from them for the foreseeable future.

That said, let me add more reasons to strongly dislike (if not boycott, let alone hate) Apple :

All apps on the Mac App Store will be required to run in the so-called App Sandbox

Apple sues but loses design lawsuit against Spanish tablet maker (producing a tablet nothing like the iPad)

Apple is using patents to undermine the development of Web standards and block their finalization

Apple has given valuable patents to a patent troll (which is using them to sue top technology companies)

And, last but not least, I don't know whether to laugh or cringe about this one:

Apple threatens 20-seat restaurant that sells only drinks, sandwiches and desserts because it's called AppleADay

RT.

Actually both the Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab are in line for ICS. It would have been more convincing if you are not got the story from an Apple fanboi website.

You better be glad I am not moderator today.

Don't you even keep up with the Verge?

http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/23/2657132/samsung-no-ics-upgrade-for-galaxy-s-and-galaxy-tab

Last I heard that is the furthest thing from an Apple fan site, right?

There are almost as many real android users weighing in about this development as you would find on /.

They feel betrayed and they are angry! Ten million Android users just got screwed after buying high end Android Galaxy devices from Samsung.
See their comments on VERGE.

Add that to the disgruntled Android users from HTC and you begin to see a disturbing pattern that bodes danger for Android's future in the US market unless this new stuff is so cheap most people would not care, but get over $300 for any Android and there may be problems compared to the marketing challenges coming from Apple in February.

Too many things are beginning to go wrong with Android at an astonishing pace and that needs to be fixed ASAP.
CES better recharge the nation's desire for Android or 2012 will be a runaway year of the Apple.

It still competes directly with Android devices.
While real Android Devices are of much better quality than the Kindle Fire, and have higher levels of software support and better quality hardware, they are still tarnished by the Kindle Fires existence.

>

Meanwhile in business world, Amazon will continue making money hand-over-fist buy selling stuff, Apple will continue making money hand-over-fist buy selling stuff and Google and Facebook will still be making hand-over-fist by selling your data.

Three disturbing points in the last 48 hours.

Samsung will leave 10,000,000 Samsung Android owners abandoned by refusing to provide them with ICS. This has the potential of making up to ten million people very unhappy with android. If they tell merely five others how they feel being screwed than that means fifty million people will be exposed to negative android publicity by a trusted friend.

http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/23/2657132/samsung-no-ics-upgrade-for-galaxy-s-and-galaxy-tab

Dell is after killing of their Dell Streak android tablets in the US a week or two ago is switching to a fork of Android from the Chinese for their new Dell Streak smartphone which will rival any flagship Android sold in the US for high end quality. This new fragmentation may chill Google on Android when they see their hold on the smartphone and tablet market slipping away by the treacherous actions.
.
http://androidcommunity.com/dell-partners-with-chinese-search-engine-baidu-for-streak-pro-20111223/

The last is the move by both B&N and Amazon to lockout access to root with a new update to their 'Android' firmware. This is a real kick in the teeth from former friends to Android and open source.

Now run that by me again how 2012 is going to become the year of Google Android.

No, that's not a good thing to people outside of tech forums. People don't want varieties, a selection of features, a personalized experience, and an interface customized by the manufacturer. They don't want to configure and maintain a tablet; they just want one that works out of the box. You're missing the whole point of a tablet, and you're missing the fact that everyone's iPad being the same is a selling point, not a drawback.

Fragmentation hurts Android; it doesn't help it. Samsung just announced today that the Galaxy Tab and Galaxy S won't be getting Android 4.0. Android is no longer an operating system; it's a bundle that manufacturers build their own operating systems on, slightly incompatible with all the rest.

Better watch out. Someone will get mad if you point that out.

http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/15/2638611/horseshit

Just imagine: in 2013 having a windows phone that:
a) Can be used as a phone (of course!)
b) Can be used as a tablet (windows 8 with the Metro UI)
c) Can be used as a computer (windows 8 with the Classic UI)
d) Can be used as a game console (it is rumored that the next xbox could run in ARM processors a variant of the windows 8 kernel).

Microsoft is known for improving its products version after version... Everyone thinks that Windows Phone 7.5 is a very goog start: just read the reviews:
- Engadget ( http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/27/windows-phone-7-5-mango-review/ )
"While Windows Phone still needs a glass of water to get rid of a few hiccups -- and let's face it, every mobile OS has plenty of their own -- it ironed out a lot of the wrinkles from earlier versions and made it a much more feature-laden, user-friendly experience. With Mango, WP7 has caught up with Android and iOS in nearly every way, and in some areas it's even surpassed the other two in functionality. Despite a grim first year, the bright future of Windows Phone is forcing Ballmer to wear shades."
- The Verge ( http://www.theverge.com/2011/10/24/2509332/windows-phone-75-mango-review )
"Put simply, regardless of your preconceptions, Windows Phone finally deserves an honest look the next time you’re ready to buy a phone — particularly as we start to see new devices come to market over the next few weeks."
- gsmarena ( http://www.gsmarena.com/windows_phone_7_5-review-655.php )
"WP7 lacked key functionality, which deterred potential consumers. Version 7.5 however brings things that will appeal to businesspeople, social networking buffs and people who like a novel software experience. If you're using Microsoft software (chances are you're using at least Office at work), WP7.5 offers the smoothest, most well-rounded experience. The rich bundle of several social networks and IM clients and emails and texts is beautifully organized too. And let's face it, the Windows Phone interface is the only UI around that's truly different - iOS, Android, even Symbian are becoming harder and harder to tell apart. The only thing that held it back was the lack of multitasking and now that's been sorted out."

Meg Whitman said in an interview with The Verge that they are planning on making more tablets later. We'll see how that pans out, but it might give webOS a bit more traction.

Also the open sourcing webOS might open the door for the Dalvik VM and running Android applications on webOS. That would make things interesting.

LG Prada [wikipedia.org] Try again. Apple wasn't the first, and the only thing that makes them "trying to look like the iPhone" is the focus on a large touch screen rather than tons of buttons. Seems the entire "Apple transformed the market" is the straw man.

The LG Prada makes my point very well because the LG Prada was not a big success, despite being made by a well-known factory and having a famous design imprint. Hardly anybody in the US has used it, because no US carrier even bothered to offer it. Clearly, it takes more than just a touchscreen to transform the market for phones. What Apple offered was a touchscreen paired with software that fully exploited the capabilities of a touchscreen. The LG Prada, on the other hand, just used the touchscreen to imitate an older phone design. For example, if you wanted to enter text, there was no QWERTY keyboard--you had to do it with multiple button presses on a numeric keypad. Essentially, what the LG Prada did was use the touchscreen to emulate older phone designs. Hardly surprising that nobody was much interested in it. It turned out that coming up with a usable touch-based phone was not as easy as it now might seem in hindsight. Modern smartphones do not merely imitate the iPhone in appearance, they also emulate in in software design--another one of those things that seems obvious once somebody else is brilliant enough to come up with it. Here is a comment from Andrew Munn, who worked on the Android development team.

Work on Android started before the release of the iPhone, and at the time Android was designed to be a competitor to the Blackberry. The original Android prototype wasn’t a touch screen device. Android’s rendering trade-offs make sense for a keyboard and trackball device. When the iPhone came out, the Android team rushed to release a competitor product, but unfortunately it was too late to rewrite the UI framework.

This is the same reason why Windows Mobile 6.5, Blackberry OS, and Symbian have terrible touch screen performance. Like Android, they were not designed to prioritise UI rendering. Since the iPhone’s release, RIM, Microsoft, and Nokia have abandoned their mobile OS’s and started from scratch. Android is the only mobile OS left that existed pre-iPhone.

It was only after iPhone that Android scrambled to imitate the iPhone's software and hardware design

Before the release of the iPad tablet PCs never got the type of market penetration that it did, mostly due to the lack of good user friendly software. Tablet PCs were developed more with the Geeks and enthusiasts in mind so the average person couldn't figure out how to easily use it. With the creation of the iPad, Apple was riding its own coattails to success. It was marketed, essentially, as an iPhone with a bigger screen. They capitalized on the iOS software that scaled well and chose the size well, probably after some good R&D. However, the form-factor concept of a flat, rectangular screen, with bezels on the side is nothing new. Tablet PCs before the iPad did it just as well. The iPad's name is reportedly a homage to the Star Trek PADD, which looks extremely similar to the iPad. As I said, the concept of a flat, rectangular, bezeled device is nothing new at all. There's nothing novel about it.The software running on it that takes advantage of the form factor and makes it as useful and easy to use, that is novel.

Exactly. There is more to a successful touch phone or pad than just the form factor. What transformed the market was Apple's felicitous combination of a particular hardware design with software designed and optimized to take adva

http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/5/2612610/dell-were-not-backing-away-from-android

The rest haven't been sued because they're not black, with rounded edges and a single button with a rectangular screen.

Yes that would be a problem IF the lawsuits were really about having a rounded rec with a button. Unfortunately you've bought into the hyped "LOL rectangle" straw man argument that Slashdot loves so much. Read this article for a more nuanced opinion. In both the Samsung and Motorola cases there is a package of related claims, not a single monolithic vague one like "it looks like a rectangle."

These were actually some of the design options Apple said Samsung had to make their products more differentiated, and not infringe on their design products. While some of them are just crazy, others aren't too bad. Here's the original article: http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/2/2596527/apple-samsung-design-patent-iphone-ipad-work-around

Without the dock they are about the same according to Engadget. With the dock the Transformer gets six more hours or so. This is in line with my experience on the original Transformer. Battery life is "enough to stop worrying about whether you're going to run out."

The engadget battery test is pretty basic... simply running a video repeatedly. The Verge test is a bit more complex, involving web page refreshes and other activity that more accurately simulates daily usage (notably wireless is a huge battery drainer)... and in the Verge review of the product [1], the reviewer put the tablet at 5-6hrs without the dock, about half the iPad (note: reviewer will retest battery and update soon).

Note: I'm pretty excited about the Transformer Prime (still awaiting ICS/CM9), and hope it does well on the retest... it's a very decent competitor to the iPad.

[1] http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/1/2601558/asus-eee-pad-transformer-prime-review

Interestingly, it looks like the "pure" Android phones (i.e the Nexus line) don't ship with CarrierIQ

check these reveiew. http://www.marco.org/2011/06/03/nook-simple-touch-review http://www.theverge.com/2011/11/11/2458956/kindle-2011-review ... im not saying difference is heavy but nook is slightly better off than kindle touch.

It's not that it would have cost more necessarily, it's that Starz wanted to be a premium service for for which the subscriber paid more, at their option. Netfilx, probably correctly, saw this was unworkable and would have ruined the Instant Queue user experience, and Starz/Liberty Media, probably correctly, saw that their content was being sold at a discount to it's value, give what people are willing to spend on Starz content on pay cable, even though it's less convenient. But now Starz is starting its own streaming service, which will probably be better for everybody -- Starz can charge whatever price it pleases, and reap the rewards (or endure the consequences) of that, and Netflix doesn't have to change its pricing.

Its looking like side loading apps on the nook tablet is easy as, I would say rooting it isn't far behind! http://www.theverge.com/2011/11/17/2568172/nook-tablet-can-sideload-android-apps-no-root-required

Oddly enough, the Blackberry PlayBook will, in fact, run windows 3.1

Now you can get your "ski free" and "rodent's revenge" fix on the go!