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iPhone's Development Limitations Could Hurt It In the Long Run
ZDOne writes "Apple might have finally come around to allowing third party developers to create applications for the iPhone, but only up to a point. ZDNet UK claims Apple is leaving itself vulnerable to the competition and to a loss of lustre
by blocking background tasks on the device. The author notes, 'Perhaps it doesn't trust application designers or users very much. Perhaps it wants the best software for itself, where it can limit what it can do in order not to upset its telco friends. Whatever the reason, it reflects badly on Apple. The iPhone is not an iPod; it's a smartphone connecting to a universe of fast-changing data on behalf of innovation-hungry users. The sooner it stops pretending to be a 1981 IBM PC, the better it will be for everyone.'"
A) Apple
B) iPhones
Look over there! It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's a reality distortion field!
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
I'd say 128mb would still run, for the average user, about about 16 spyware apps, 3 trojans, 2 worms, 4 backdoors, 5 adware apps, at least one SMS spambot, oh, and don't forget the LOLcat screensaver.
Are you Ethan from here?
Off topic, but, heh, yeah, I know that feeling all too well. I'm not Ethan, but same idea.
Actually this guy was worse, if that's even possible. At least Ethan's coworker seems to have more than a CS story. Mine had exactly one.
Every day he'd play on the same map. No idea why, maybe he just got his best scores there or something. Every day he'd sneak behind the same warehouse, climb on the same ladder, drop through the same vent, crawl through the same pipe, drop in the same room, and shoot the guy camping in the corner. (CS fans probably recognize the map by now.) And then relate that in detail the next day. Every bloody day.
What started as "hmm, really? pretty clever that", ended up a case where my brain wanted to crawl out an ear and run for the hills. I can't even put into words how boring it can be to hear the exact same story, in the exact same sequence, the two hundredth time, over several months. But what really makes me cringe is the thought that he was actually enacting that repetition several dozen times a day, each day.
Actually, that's a lie: there was a second story, that of how he defended on that map.
I actually watched him do that once after hours. (Ok, so sometimes I'm too stupid to say "no.") So he quickly buys a gun and run in front of a vent some 6 ft above the ground, and starts jumping up and down in front of it. After about a minute, some enemy drops from the vent on the roof into that duct, my co-worker shoots him. Reloads and keeps hopping there in place, like a kangaroo. Next round, the same thing. Next round, the same thing. Ad infinitum, almost literally.
Two whole hours, he jumped up and down in front of a square grate. That's it.
*hop* *hop* *hop* *hop* *hop* *hop* *hop* *hop*
*hop* *hop* *hop* *hop* *hop* *hop* *hop* *hop* *BANG!*
*hop* *hop* *hop* *hop* *hop* *hop* *hop* *hop*
*hop* *hop* *hop* *hop* *hop* *hop* *hop* *hop*
[...]
*hop* *hop* *hop* *hop* *hop* *hop* *hop* *hop*
*hop* *hop* *hop* *hop* *hop* *hop* *hop* *hop* *BANG!*
*hop* *hop* *hop* *hop* *hop* *hop* *hop* *hop*
I actually stood there and watched it for two hours, mostly out of sheer morbid curiosity. It was so monotonous and mind-numbing, that I was starting to fear I'm losing neurons just watching it. But, you know, I couldn't believe that someone would actually keep doing it. I expected him to go "ah, fuck it, let's do something else" any moment now. No. Round after round he bought his gun and ammo, ran to that vent, and hopped like a deranged kangaroo in place in front of it.
The only thing I can compare it, is that Charly Chaplin movie where he's at an assembly line and twists two screws every couple of seconds.
I won't even try to speculate about what kind of mind would find that entertaining to do, for several hours a day, every day, for months.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.