Slashdot Mirror
iPhone 4 News Roundup
We have a slew of iPhone 4-related stories this morning, so I'm lumping them together for easier consumption/ignoring, depending on your personal feelings on the subject.
Here is a blog entry proclaiming that iOS 4 multitasking sucks and why. Here is a sketchy summary of privacy violations by Apple and AT&T — apparently they are reporting back jailbroken phones. Skunkpost has a story about the lines and sales of the new phone. But the big news of the morning is the reception problems that apparently only affect people who hold the phone in their left hands.
Goatse.
But seriously folks...the new iPhone hardware and many of the additions they are making to the OS are really great...but I'm sorry, I still can't get past the walled garden. Again, I know the app store would have everything I would likely need, but I just can't accept being told that an application would be inappropriate for me to use. And yes, I know I could just jailbreak it...but that's not the point. I don't care that I can get around it, I care that the walled garden exists in the first place. As a consumer, the best I can do is vote with my wallet.
This is only my opinion, I don't speak for others, YMMV, etc applies.
Living With a Nerd
So first Apple controls what apps you can use, now they are controlling which hand you can use the iPhone in?
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
It seems it's not just lefties who are getting bad reception on the new iPhone; it's anyone holding it in either hand. Here's a link to a video and a round up of stories: http://magnetowasright.wordpress.com/2010/06/24/better-wait-to-get-a-new-iphone/ Once again, Apple has put out a beta product that's not fully tested.
The screens have yellow spots. Apparently these "retina" displays have cataracts.
Steve Jobs doesn't care about left handed people. - Kanye
Remember?
Cooperative multitasking, rather than preemptive multitasking. The burden of "playing nice" (pun intended for the Unix literate) falls upon the application.
State of the art for desktop computers, circa 87-92.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Perhaps Apple (and others) need to shift emphasis back towards the actual calling features of their phones. Who wants a phone that drops calls if you hold it wrong ? It's great that it has new software, etcetc, but any phone I would consider buying needs to include basic features like better than average reception, a decent sounding speaker/mic, and most importantly, does not drop calls if you touch it in it's no-no spot.
At least almost certainly.
MuscleNerd, one of the, if not THE foremost Apple device hacker out there has implied he has done code inspection and just through common sense says its all BS.
There are a few tweets on the matter but this is one of the more telling:
http://twitter.com/MuscleNerd/status/16876551921
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
Apple's restrictions on multitasking make little sense from a technical point of view. From other platforms, we know that is not a major battery drain, and it's perfectly possible for a scheduler to do automatically whatever Apple's special APIs are trying to achieve.
Unless Apple just doesn't know what they are doing, the real reason behind Apple's restrictions on multitasking is more likely the same as their restrictions on scripting languages and alternative development environments: they want to keep control. With multitasking, you could run local file servers and local web servers. You could create new applications delivery platforms, local music servers, and a local file system and file manager.
The multitasking complaint seems kind of off to me - he complains about the tray being "cluttered" after you go through a few apps because they are automatically added to the tray. But the tray is just four apps wide - how can you have clutter in only four items? And he complains he needs to press and hold to quit an app - but also complains most apps are just suspended. So then why quit an app? It's not doing anything and will be removed if you are low on memory.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Apparently Apple's testers discovered some new way of using phones that does not include holding it in your hand.
Also;
You mean you have to use your hands?
That's like a baby's toy!
The queue in Hampstead this morning was 23 strong at 6.30 this morning (I was number 23), though by 7.00 it extended fairly far down Hampstead High Street. Mercifully, Samir in his white Apple iPhone 4 t-shirt came around, checked we were O2 customers and fetched everyone tea, coffee and juice from Gail's on the other side of the road. I didn't dare ask for one of Gail's scrumptious cake (had a slice of birthday cake there a few weeks ago and it was heavenly). I wasn't blessed with the Divine Device until a little past nine, but it all went smoothly with nary a cross word. That's a lie, a rather brash young lady sashayed up and attempted to sweet talk the two chaps behind me into allowing her to queue jump. Her lousy manners were challenged by a whingy American-sounding fellow. She then said "what are you going to do about it? Hit me?" She was Spanish and looked for all the world like some demented Almodóvar-esque creation. She had the good sense to eventually leave. So far the iPhone 4 has been brilliant. Fingers crossed the decent reception will last!
Seriously, is anyone else getting tired of the daily Apple story on the iPhone?
I get it, it's tech that people like, but do we really need daily updates on it? This site tends to be a heavy linux advocate and there is a nice writeup of the EVO 4G on Ars today. Not a peep of that though, MORE APPLE!
the long and short of it is that I should just jailbreak my iPhone instead?
Summation 2
Android supports full preemptive multitasking, thanks to it being built on Linux.
You do realize that you can't change reality, or the pain that you suffer from due to having bought an iPhone, by spreading outright lies about non-Apple devices and software, right?
Regardless of what you say or believe, Android will still support preemptive multitasking, while iOS does not.
I would be curious about the conductivity of certain coatings. I personally hate covers for phones, as they add bulk. As a person with nickel allergies, I have to coat belt buckles and the like with acrylic. I wonder if the same would help this antenna. If so, then they could do something similar in the manufacturing process. They do similar coatings for fishing rods that weather well.
If you can't find any decent articles to run, have you thought about just not running any articles until you do find some? It's not like you are forced to publish anything at regular intervals (or are you, by your corporate overlords?)
... and then they built the supercollider.
The new iPhone actually does address a lot of the calling complaints.
If you read the engadget review, the metal external antenna really do improve signal and ( for them) eliminated dropped calls.
The speakers are supposed to be improved for hearing people, and the phone had two microphones now so it can do noise cancelation.
Basically, they did a lot of things to improve call quality.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Apparently the author who wrote about multitasking hasn't actually tried it out yet, because he's off-base. While the app tray does quickly get cluttered, as he mentions, the lack of true multitasking is exactly why this doesn't matter - you can have as many apps down there as you want but they're not actively consuming resources. Where he's really off is in his implication that it now becomes difficult to find your apps to switch back to them. Look, if I'm playing Peggle and then use 4, or worst case 8, apps after switching out of Peggle - mentally I just won't even think to look in the task tray for it anymore. I just can't keep track of every app I've used in my brain. The tray will quickly let me switch back to my most recently used apps, which is really handy - but when I want to switch back to the middle of my Peggle game a week and 20 other app uses later I... and this will sound crazy... click the Peggle icon wherever it's located on my main screens. The author seems to think that the only way to resume an app is from the task tray, and that's simply not true.
Granted, I had some uncertainty about how this would work, too. But I grabbed a new iPhone and tried it out to see exactly how it works, rather than hopping on the interwebs and writing up an article with uninformed assumptions which then ended up on the front page of /.
Additionally, he goes on to say that developers have to explicitly add multitasking. While that's true for using the background services, my understanding (and correct me if I'm wrong folks, as I have this on good authority but haven't actually tried it) is that for the base level of background freezing, which for a majority of apps is all that's really needed, all you have to do is recompile the app against iOS 4. It's not automagic, but it's really not so bad as the author implies. The worst bit about it is submitting to the app store, but it should be pretty painless to get to that point.
Granted, it's not true multitasking. Everyone knows that by now. But frankly, I'd rather the phone always be responsive and maintain its battery life than have true multitasking for the vast majority of the things that I do and have no desire to have to actively manage my apps (which contrary to the author's claims, I don't have to do). Maybe some day I'll change my mind on that. Maybe right now this level of multitasking isn't good enough for many people out there. And that's cool, we have options now - get one of the many excellent Android phones. But please don't write a blog post of inaccuracies.
Its been a long time since I coded for it. But I recall you only got CPU cycles for the window in control. There were a few hacks to make small apps called accessories (e.g. a clock) multi-task and to do background print rasterizing. But for the most part the original Mac was single tasking I recall.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Well, you do have a right to do what you want with your device ( once its paid off ) but it is their network you are asking to use, and its their rules to connect to it, regardless of what we think. Now if the blacklist disabled your device ( AT&T service not withstanding, or canceling your warranty ) then there is a problem. If it sticks with disabling your access to THEIR network, oh well.
Its their right ( but then again, its our right not to choose their service... )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
From the TechWorld iOS4 multitasking article in the summary:
Waiting for a YouTube video to buffer over a 3G connection? It won't go anywhere unless you're staring at the loading screen.
Honestly, doesn't this also happen by default with applications on other mobile OS'es like Android, unless the developer specifies otherwise in the app's code?
From what I understand about the Android application life cycle under normal circumstances, once an Activity (the app's presentation layer, what you interact with) is completely obscured, the application's host process becomes a "background" process. Meaning, the app's Activities aren't visible and there are no Services running, thereby making the app's host process one of the first processes to be killed off so to allocate resources. (Service example: a media player running in the background while you're actively using another app). For an app's host process to remain in an active state, the app must have a running Activity, Service or Broadcast Receiver. In my following the Android dev tutorials, I've seen that only the Activity is absolutely required - Services and Broadcast Receivers are added only when you need them for your app to fulfill it's intended purpose.
So, in the case of buffering the YouTube video, if I were writing an Android app to do just that, I'd have to have explicitly created a Service to keep buffering the video while I used another app. If I didn't create a Service to keep buffering when the app's Activity exited the active state, then my app would do just what the article says - the app does nothing until I explicitly return to the app.
Am I missing something?
One guy doesn't like how multitasking works. He thinks the multitasking tray is cluttered.
Somebody unidentified alleged that Apple is tracking jailbreaks.
I assume there's a story about lots of people waiting in lines, but that one's blocked here at work. (ComputerWorld had a story recently about what was likely to happen today, and was predicting lines. They also mentioned eBay prices of up to fifteen thousand dollars for an iPhone.)
One person is having problems when touching the lower left corner of one iPhone. Neither the other one the guy bought that day nor the review model had that problem.
CmdrTaco is desperate for iPhone news to put on the front page.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
But most apps won't do anything except go to sleep, which means one of the classic tricks of multitasking, loading one task while you perform another, is not available unless the developer adds that function under a special task completion API. Some apps, such as Flickr, may take advantage of this feature for large file transfers, but others won't. Waiting for a YouTube video to buffer over a 3G connection? It won't go anywhere unless you're staring at the loading screen.
I don't think so.
It's the nature of bleeding-edge tech.
Dog is my co-pilot.
Love to say it, but things getting more closed is not something "new", it was always around, and in fact, the things are getting more open all the time. Even for handheld devices.
Why the "open it" movement is called a movement, is exactly, because it began in circumstances, were not much was open.
Being consumer oriented, by decidinig, what a costumer should be able to do, and what not, is only decided by what makes first mentioned become second mentioned in greatest percentages, nothing more.
The iPhone is for people who want to use a cool gadget, not for people who want to have a gadget for all their things they want to use it to.
And yes, everybody is both a little bit. That's why adapting of dinosaurs does not build upon change of "antiquated" views, but instead on having an idealistic opinion while getting a realistic attitude.
Maybe not, but you'd hope they would at least get the whole phone part done properly first, including the reception, before worrying about all the add-ons for it.
It is an iPhone after all..
The f***'n phone doesn't even work and everybody's talking about the "walled garden".
I posted this as a comment on the multi-tasking article, but I'll restate it here with a little more verbosity.
Ever since I've had an iPhone, I've wondered what the obsession is with multitasking. I couldn't really think of any two *productive* things to do simultaneously on a phone. On a PC (by that I mean a desktop, laptop, netbook), I can appreciate the need to go do some other design work while you render a huge video, or burn a DVD, or OCR a huge document. On a phone, I can't, off-hand, think of much CPU-intensive stuff that can run for an extended time without needing to stop for user input. Because of that, productivity is lost because you're having to stop and switch apps all the time. The meaning of "EMACS" is true. Editors Make All Computers Slow. If the device is waiting for user input, then its speed (or multitasking ability) is moot.
Wanting to Pandora to keep streaming while you tweet is *not* a productivity enhancer; it's merely letting you be a little more streamlined about wasting your time (kinda like texting while you watch TV). Now, I know I'm sounding like an old "all work, no play" curmudgeon about this (and get off my lawn, too!). Don't get me wrong. I agree that being able to keep Pandora going while I do other stuff is a nicety, but I don't think that something like that is such a "must have" thing that it warrants all of the articles and posts we've seen demanding that Apple make significant changes to the OS and its API in order to make it possible. I'd never once make the argument that the iPhone OS has some glaring hole in its functionality because I can't listen to music while I'm sending a text.
Yet, Apple caved and gave it to us anyway. So now, the dude who wrote the article is mad because he can't go do something else while a YouTube video loads. Breaking story: If you're visiting YouTube, you've already decided that your time isn't valuable. I read another article where a guy was mad because he couldn't go switch to something else in the 5-6 seconds while a page loads in Safari (probably while he's driving, too).
My position on full background-execution multitasking remains unchanged from the first time I tried a Windows Mobile phone after being a Palm user for years. With a small device like a phone, it's just too easy for a user to rack up this huge array of crap running in the background without realizing it. And that, potentially, has a greater impact on your productivity since it will gobble up the power in your battery. With a PC, you've got a task bar or a dock to see what you've got running. In addition, there's a one-click way of shutting off the app. Whenever a Windows Mobile user would have me look at their phone to fix it, I'd find that they had a half-dozen things still running: control panel, mail, notepad, contacts... all of these things were things where they had finished their work with those apps, but they either didn't realize that they had to close the apps or they were too lazy to press "Menu->File->Quit". Instead, they just went back to the home screen and started the next app they wanted.
Personally, I think that Apple's compromise is a good one. If your app doesn't have a compelling reason to keep executing (like streaming audio, getting GPS updates for navigation, etc.), then the most your app really needs is just to have its state saved for quick re-launch.
I was going to respond to the fluffy article on multitasking here, but I found this article to be much more useful reading.
The lost prototype was camouflaged in an iPhone 3G[s] shell. This non-conductive plastic shell would have prevented the flawed antenna design from being revealed.
Do you even understand what preemptive multitasking is? It's supposed to be completely transparent to applications. If it's done right, there should be literally nothing to expose to applications.
Applications should be able to run as if they're the only process, and the operating system takes care of ensuring that all processes get their fair share of the system's resources.
There shouldn't even need to be any way for a process to yield the CPU. If a process doesn't need the CPU, it's because it's blocked and waiting for input. The OS should resume it once input is available. Otherwise, the process is using the CPU, and it'll be preempted if another process requires some CPU time.
"I hear that Steve Jobs is left handed."
Jared Newman got up on the wrong side of the bed, but he's been rewarded by CmdrTaco with loads of clicks.
SKUNKPOST!
You take it, I don't want it...
iPhone 4, can NOT Upload 720p Videos to youtube direct from phone! What a Shame see http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=10309456
You'll notice that not all vehicles with speed limiters have the same limit. Most manufacturers set the speed limiter according to the tires supplied on the vehicle from the dealer, passenger tires have speed ratings on them which they are not recommended to be used above.
For example an 'S' rated tire is common equipment on your average family sedan. The S rating means the tire is good for up to 112mph. If Honda sold you an Accord with S rated tires and a speed limiter at 155mph you could sue them and probably win if one of the tires on your new car blew up while you were doing 130mph (this is assuming you survive of course). Thus most automakers set a speed limiter lower than the rating on the tires.
So, in the case of buffering the YouTube video, if I were writing an Android app to do just that, I'd have to have explicitly created a Service to keep buffering the video while I used another app. If I didn't create a Service to keep buffering when the app's Activity exited the active state, then my app would do just what the article says - the app does nothing until I explicitly return to the app.
Am I missing something?
No, you're not. TFA is the usual piece of clueless reporting.
It's because consumers rule that walled gardens will fail in the long term. Otherwise, we'd all be using CompuServe or AOHell. And we'd all be using Macs. And we'd all be using closed standards for data transmission such as Alex teletext at 300 baud, and not http.
Microsoft knows not to tell people "You can't install non-Microsoft applications on your computer." Apple, on the other hand, appears to be trying to move away from "computers" to walled devices like iPhones and iPads.
Problem is they are now falling behind, as the competition is able to come out with better products quicker - look at the Droid X. One of those replaces both an iPhone and an iPad. The multi-touch on-screen keypad is a big thing for people who like to thumb-type, as is the 4.3" screen, 720p video, etc.
Don't waste your time. There is no way you are going to successfully defend Apple's practices to me. You don't have a problem with their walled garden? That is totally fine with me. You want to purchase and use their walled products? Again, totally fine with me...you won't hear me telling you not to, nor will you ever see me trying to convince you to use Android. Apple obviously provides a service that you enjoy, and that's awesome.
That being said, don't try to convince me that my personal opinion is wrong when Apple is clearly doing something that I personally disagree with, ok?
Living With a Nerd
Worthless to 98+% of smartPhone users. Tech folks have a very skewed and unrealistic view of what smartphones are and how they will be used. We techies want our smartphones to do a lot of what our laptops do for us.
Regular users don't want their smartPhone to be a computer. They want it to be a phone that let's them do a few other things. They don't want to have to remember to stop apps so their battery doesn't die in a hour or 2. They don't want complex navigation. They don't want apps that make them constantly reboot their phone. They do want a simple, consistent interface and they want to know that the few apps that they buy/download/acquire will work on their phones. I would be surprised if more than a small percentage of multitasking smartphone users use any multitasking features besides music, messaging and GPS.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
What amazes me the most is reading comments on various sites, and realising that iPhone freaks think icon-grid is somehow invented by Apple, and they should sue Samsung/Google/whoever.
What the fuck? These people are becoming worse than Microsoft Windows 3.11 zealots. Wow.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I upgraded the OS on my 3GS, and I can't get anything from the Exchange server now. It's just giving me "can't connect to server." (Interestingly, it pulls my list of Inbox folders but not my mail or calendar, and still tells me it can't connect.)
It worked fine before the OS upgrade to the phone, and nothing's changed on the Exchange environment. (I'm the Exchange admin.)
There seem to be lots of posts about this on Apple's site, but nothing I have tried has fixed this issue yet.
So if you have an iPhone and sync with an Exchange server.... WAIT to upgrade until they patch this.
iPhone DontTouch
How does it not make sense that using a device with a better antenna will not improve your experience, on any network (crappy or not)?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Though Apple sets itself as a nice target for such critique, with all the PR about how iPhone is, essentially, a new wonder of the world...
And really, problems with phone functionality / reception? Mobiles for $30 (yes, price without contract) manage to have it right.
One that hath name thou can not otter
iPhone2G won't have iOS4. But iTunes now upgrades and overwrites without a warning some of my apps (they are "iOS3" or "iOS2") by newest versions (that are now "iOS4 only").
My bought apps are overwritten by incompatible version ! I can't use the newest version, and the old working one has been overwritten without a warning.
Paying for apps and now losing them... Thanks Steve !
-- Rastignac was here.
The fact that you think anything needs defending is what is wrong.
"The day Apple makes iPhone available on Verizon, the market for Android devices will take an enormous hit."
Apple should have released it on Verizon 6 months ago. Apple is letting Google's platform become firmly entrenched, and now that hardware manufacturers don't have to write their own OS, they can provide all kinds of interesting handset features. This will rapidly become a PC versus Mac type battle.
The point is, if Apple waits another year to release to Verizon, the impact will be interesting, but it will be too late to have the kind of impact you think.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Your face is wrong :p
But seriously though.
If you think of the iPhone as an appliance and not a computer, then it makes perfect sense.
I often hear this argument, and my response is always the same: it doesn't matter how you spin it, it doesn't matter what you call it, it doesn't matter what you "think of it as"...the fact is, Apple offers a restricted product while others offer an unrestricted product. I have a choice as a consumer, and I've made one.
Living With a Nerd
NMaybe on Android, but not "on other mobile OS'es" ("...like Android"? Huh?)
One that hath name thou can not otter
My contract won't be up until 2012, and by then I'm sure the iPhone 4 will be 1 or 2 revisions behind. That, combined with the fact that it's $600+tax for the low end model without signing a contract means I am going to be skipping this generation of hardware.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
That happened to me too during an upgrade. I went ahead and just factory restored the phone and added in my Exchange account again and it worked. Pretty annoying.
From a developer's perspective, iOS is the platform to beat.
Median iOS developer income per app: $682 per year.
Da Blog
You realize that your entire argument goes down the drain with that one exception?
How about if you wanted to take down notes with your phone WHILE watching said instructive YouTube video?
Point is, people have perfectly legitimate, non-time-wasting reasons to "bellyache" (as you so put it) for multitasking. Don't treat those reasons as unimportant (implicit from your accusation that "they have already decided that their time isn't valuable") just because *you* don't have those reasons.
I hope you don't mind me omitting the trollish end of your sentence. I *do* switch between the web browser and the maps app on my Android phone when navigating on foot to somewhere, with the web browser bringing up the website of my destination (to get address details that the map won't show, e.g. when the destination is inside a mall).
Even though it's one USER task, those are still two PHONE tasks running at the same time. I expect my phone to keep up with me. 5 to 6 seconds is an awfully long time when you're running late.
Needless to say I'm quite glad I've been able to do what I do on my Android long before *anyone* can do it on an iPhone, thanks to multitasking.
Heck my older Nokia 6680 has been doing it way before these new-fangled phones, and I've always found it useful.
I wonder what the obsession is with your kind about BASHING the existence of multitasking on phones.
Pet peeve: Profane people propagating perfunctory pedantry.
I have a choice as a consumer, and I've made one.
Good for you. So why do you keep commenting on every Apple story about the 'walled garden' and your problems with it? Is it because you are unhappy with your current choice and you would like to go with Apple if only they played according to your rules? or do you really think the readers here (on /., of all places) are so ignorant that you feel the need to constantly remind them of Apple's walled garden, when they make their choices? when you proclaim that you have a choice as a consumer and you've made yours, is it that hard to accept others are doing the same thing, and happy for the same reason?
This is not a personal attack on you, I wholly understand your point but I'm curious to know why the insistence - I can see a legitimate complaint when you are torn between choices - but why after you have made your choice? In fact, let's make this twitter-blunt: can you give the reason in 140 characters?
My sig has been answered.
Good for you. So why do you keep commenting on every Apple story about the 'walled garden' and your problems with it? Is it because you are unhappy with your current choice and you would like to go with Apple if only they played according to your rules? or do you really think the readers here (on /., of all places) are so ignorant that you feel the need to constantly remind them of Apple's walled garden, when they make their choices? when you proclaim that you have a choice as a consumer and you've made yours, is it that hard to accept others are doing the same thing, and happy for the same reason?
Two reasons: I like to partake in as many conversations as possible on Slashdot, and because this particular topic always gets the most responses. I like responses :-)
This is not a personal attack on you, I wholly understand your point but I'm curious to know why the insistence - I can see a legitimate complaint when you are torn between choices - but why after you have made your choice? In fact, let's make this twitter-blunt: can you give the reason in 140 characters?
I can do it in 23 characters, including spaces and punctuation:
I'm an attention whore. ::shrug::
PS: That ::shrug:: doesn't count towards the 23 characters
PSS: That PS doesn't count towards the 23 characters
PSSS: That PSS...AUGH!
Living With a Nerd
Yep, for most for PC users the Desktop is their filesystem.
I have a choice as a consumer, and I've made one.
Definitely; that is the smart choice.
Your decision making process: "I don't like being restricted, therefore I'm not buying it"
Most people's decision making process: "ooh, shiny! (shell out 2x the value for the product)" or "A guy in black shirt talked this up for a while, and he said it's the most revolutionary thing ever, so it must be true"
The latter is what worries me.
Open Phones with custom Android Version Operating Systems and pre-configured VOIP over wifi/data. They're a little pricey but worth it for the openness and the feature of unlimited free calling (WOOHOO!)
Email phaistoscommunications@gmail.com... You'll get the details of the phone.
There is a competitor, http://www.voxcorp.net/. But they are much more expensive and have fewer application options...
Good luck! Let's squeeze the phone companies OUT!
Do you only have four apps or what? Every app you open is added to the tray and you have to scroll/slide it to view them all. I don't know what the limit is, but I have 11 in there just from this morning, and they include the apps that no one would ever find a need to multitask such as Settings and iPod.
Yes I know there are more than four you can get to. But there are only four visible. I myself never even scroll to the side, for anything beyond the four I simply go through the home screen and select one.
Also just today I was using Settings from the multitasking selector, for quick disabling of WiFi. Why wouldn't you also want to flip between settings and something else?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Once the Microsoft monopoly power to manipulate hardware vendors is broken by this paradigm shift, every existing OEM besides Apple will be aligning behind Android because they must. Apple isn't going to let them design and sell Apple products, and they want to survive, so Android it is. Apple has grown huge - but it may not yet be huge enough to battle them all.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
download the dev environment, buy a couple of books, play around with the iphone simulator, write your own freaking code, pay $99 when you are ready to load the app on your phone, presto!
Ask Me About... The 80's!
Like religious zealots, some geeks can't accept that people could be happy using restricted, locked-down products from companies like Apple. Such people are far more religiously nutty than any "Apple fanbois" could ever be. They attack and put down people who use Apple products as "sheep". They promote "freedom" but can't accept it when someone else has differing views to theirs. They're hypocrites, and fanatical in their crusade.
Just wrong. ;-)
Some privacy policy Slashdot.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Everyone that I know of who has an iPhone 4 is not experiencing the left-hand reception issue at all, no matter how they hold the phone, whether cased or not. Neither did they get a bunk screen. Yes, those problems are out there as evidenced by some blog posts. So are over 600,000 iPhone 4 pre-orders, let alone the ones bought on release day that weren't pre-orders. I think the total for release day is going to be pretty mind-boggling. Of course there are going to be issues with some of those phones. Apple has a great exchange policy. Take it to an Apple store and exchange a defective iPhone (or other Apple product) on the spot. But are these fatal flaws, shared by all? Definitely not. I have no idea how common they are, and neither do you.
--- What?
In a public marketplace you don't have an overbearing landlord (be it a local authotithy or a landlord) who tries to control every single aspect of every single transaction that takes place in terms that it deems acceptable, while at the same time taking a cut of the proceedings.
In the public marketplaces I know, you are charged a fee to enter to sell your wares (and on ocassions a fee to enter the market as a buyer) and then the market faciilitator goes away and let people do the deals as they see fit.
Except for banning illegal items (counterfits, some types of pornography, etc) the market facilitator does not bother you at all once you are authorized to buy or sell.
Apple is not providing a public marketplace, no way you want to slice it.
You know.... the way that is clearly demonstrated in all of our promotional videos. Prime example at 3:12 in Apple iPhone 4- Facetime, HD Video, Multitasking, iMovie and more.
I've lost all my marbles except one & It's fun to test angular & centripetal acceleration in my skull
Let's use your same rhetorical game, but flip the script!
iPhone owner's decision making process: "I like the idea of somebody else reviewing the apps so I have less to worry about, and the device works really well, therefore I'll buy it."
Android device owner's decision making process: "FOSS-gasm!" or "A rabid neckbeard on Slashdot can't shut the fuck up about how his device is the most amazing thing ever, and everything else sucks balls, so it MUST be true!"
The latter is what worries me.