So are you suggesting that McDonalds, Walmart, etc. are a flash in the pan, and that by pursuing "cheap and good enough" they have no long term sustainable gain?
What is the audience for Windows Phone at this point?
If you want a smooth, uncomplicated user experience and don't mind lock-in with a tyrannical corporation, get an iPhone.
If you want things like freedom and openness and ethics and value and don't mind not having the "cool" phone that gets all the buzz, get an Android.
What exactly is the core audience for Windows Phone, and what are the traits that they value? I can't really think of anyone for whom Windows Phone would make more sense than either iOS or Android.
Against some country like Iran or North Korea however, they give the commander in Chief the ability to hit a target very quickly, with almost zero chance of interception, with the power of redirection (or abort) and during daylight (which would be very useful if you want to KILL all THE high value PEOPLE working there).
Interesting and insightful pair of posts all around, but I have to ask. What's the deal with the capitalization? Subliminal messages? Adam West Batman impression?
No doubt, these things seem great for niche-markets. Color, motion-capable e-readers seem awesome.
I do hope that they find their niches, and get the funds to continue to improve the technology. Because if you could get the resolution/angles/contrast of modern mobile displays onto something like a Mirasol display that is low power and daylight-readable and low-eyestrain, obviously that would be the best case scenario.
We've been hearing about this technology for years now, and unfortunately it's taken it so long to get to market that I think they've missed their market window.
Smartphones and tablets, spurred on in large part by Apple, have entered into an arms race of display quality with consumer displays the likes has never been seen before. The sort of displays our mobile devices have make our computer monitors look shameful, with AMOLED pushing the boundaries in terms of true blacks and contrast ratios and viewing angles, and ever-higher resolutions pushing DPIs to the boundaries of human sight. Most LCD IPS displays, which are the cream of the crop for desktop monitors and better than any flat-screen TV, are really just average at best these days in the mobile world.
The Mirasol displays, at least the ones that have been demoed, have never been the highest quality displays. Their two huge advantages are daylight-readability and low power-consumption. Those are two very positive traits, but at this stage, I don't really foresee anything outside of a niche market giving up ordinary-circumstance display quality for these.
WTF? it's not hard to start messing with a satellite C&C. IT's not like they are on the internet and the older ones have completely open interfaces.
"Since the satellites are controlled from the Svalbard Satellite Station in Norway which often uses the Internet to transfer and access files, it is deemed highly likely that the hackers have managed to insinuate themselves into the station's system through its Internet connection."
Show me a single Android handset that was released even 6 months ago that is user upgradable to the latest Android version without any rooting or other hacks regardless of your carrier.
It's true Android has a problem with updates, but it's nowhere near what you're suggesting it is. It's actually incredibly easy to find Android handsets released in the last 6 months easily updated to the latest Android version. It's basically all of them. It's hard to think of a handset released in the last 6 months that isn't on Android 2.3, which is the latest released version for handsets.
That said, there does seem to be a distinct drop-off in the reliability of getting updates as time stretches on, with no published guarantees and wildly varying policies between manufacturers.
Err...the first iPhone had no app store either, i.e. "nothing that would make one call it more computer than phone." It, too, was "was really just a feature phone with a touch screen...and a few built-in apps."
I have no experience to comment on whether the Prada had a "full browser" but it definitely had a browser.
That's not true. The only issue litigated in the German case that Dragonslicer was referencing was the Community Design he linked to. It is solely on the basis of that community design that an injunction was issued.
Value of the device itself? Hardly. Value of the device on the open-market to others? 10k is what they were able to fetch for it from Gizmodo Value of the device to the victim, Apple? The police hardly take that into consideration when a starving artist has their laptop stolen containing all the work they need to make a living.
Value of the victim in terms of its political clout? Ah, that makes sense.
If the crime that is being alleged is the same, and the real-world value of the stolen property is the same, I don't see a reason off-hand why it's right that the police should be playing favorites.
What are the chances of the government going to such lengths if an ordinary person gets robbed? The ordinary response from police is that's nice, we'll look into it if we have nothing better to do. The crimes they were alleging are not different than the crimes that would be applicable if this were to happen to an ordinary person instead of a powerful corporation.
And then, the chutzpah of the DA's to call out the Gizmodo editors (who may or may not have deserved it) after conducting an illegal search...
I used the words Corporation X and Corporation Y specifically to avoid making those about Apple. I don't think Apple is worse than the others on sweatshop labor and the environment.
My last question is the one about Apple, about IP freedom and openness. Most people don't care about the issues of long-term innovation and IP.
That's because they have their own lives to live, and they view the issue as more marginal than it probably is. Translated, it's because people are selfish and because there is not an unlimited amount of time available to people to become educated.
I don't know why you doubt that an Android tablet would have programs that are more mature. Android is hugely more popular than the Blackberry app platform, and most Android apps work fine on the Android tablets.
Why should they? That's a serious question, I'm not trying to troll here or be flamebait.
...
Just because the iPad doesn't fit your use case doesn't mean that anyone who doesn't want to do the things you do with computing equipment is somehow wrong, or that they should care about what you care about.
Well, this question is really the key question that cuts to the heart of a lot of problems with the human condition.
Why should people care about long-term benefit for mankind versus their own short-term desires? And the answer is rationally they shouldn't. Which is pretty much why the world is a crappy place in so many ways.
Why shouldn't I buy from Corporation X that outsources to sweatshops and is slowly sapping away the ability of America to compete in the future? I don't care about that issue because I'm not in a 3rd world country. Why shouldn't I buy from Corporation Y that destroys the environment in a way that doesn't affect me? I don't care about the issue of the environment over there because it's far away from my house. Why should I care about supporting an open ecosystem with fair intellectual property rights that guarantees innovation can't be choked by a single greedy corporation? I don't care about the issues of open ecosystems or fair IP, because I'm not a nerd and I only care about things right here and now.
You're right, they shouldn't care about those issues, rationally. However, these selfishnesses large and small are all morally wrong, and are at the root of much of shittiness of the human condition.
It's funny how you often see Apple fans saying this. But then when someone suggests that Apple should be regulated as a monopoly for its abusive practices surrounding its walled-garden, the fans' tunes immediately change (and I'm not addressing you in particular), and they say nooo there's a thriving ecosystem full of competition.
Though frankly, I think that the latter might be true. A year ago, people were saying that there is no tablet market, only an iPad market, and Apple's market share was hovering around 95% in tablets. At the last keynote, Apple was trumpeting that they control 75% of the market share in tablets. Losing 20% market share in a single year is actually pretty startling.
Now of course they had nowhere to go but down from 95%, but at 75% I think there actually is a tablet market, and not an iPad market, and any heavy-handed government regulation is probably uncalled for.
If you actually talk to people that have owned 7" tablets, you might have a different feeling.
10" tablets are like netbooks. They're inconvenient to carry around, and they're inconvenient to pull out on the go.
7" tablets slip easily into and out of a bag, or even a coat pocket.
Tellingly, review sites like Engadget that have access to every tablet under the sun are huge proponents of the 7" form factor. Engadget is always talking about what a great compromise it is beyond size and portability.
I think Amazon is going to blow this market wide open.
"Jenkins said he didn't know whether the bootloader was locked, which is one hurdle Android hackers face when altering their devices. The company won't help hackers root the tablet, it just isn't actively trying to stop them. The tablet has a USB port and mass storage mode, so you can also sideload Android APK program files, even without rooting it. That will be one way to get apps not available in Amazon's Appstore onto the Fire."
So it sounds like you're looking to buy a smartphone.
In that case, arguably one of the best smartphones on the market, and also one of the cheapest without a contract, is the Xiaomi phone, released by a Chinese startup. It's only sold in China, but it is pretty much the geekiest Android phone around. Given that it's hard to get outside of China, I wouldn't be surprised if you could re-sell it and recoup most or all of its cost when you get back to America. http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/27/xiaomi-phone-review/
"Amazon isn't doing anything special to prevent techies from "rooting" and rewriting the software on its powerful yet inexpensive new tablet, Jon Jenkins, director of Amazon's Silk browser project said."
You were asking why people use Chrome, saying you can't understand it.
A user kindly took the time and extensively explained it. You dismissed all of his reasons, and continue to express puzzlement on why anyone would use Chrome.
It's not anecdotal if it's happening to a person personally, it's a fact. Similar to the anonymous user above, I switched to Chrome because it was faster than Firefox, and used less memory. I don't care that this doesn't happen on the Firefox dev's machines. It doesn't happen on my machine, either, when I use Chrome.
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So are you suggesting that McDonalds, Walmart, etc. are a flash in the pan, and that by pursuing "cheap and good enough" they have no long term sustainable gain?
What is the audience for Windows Phone at this point?
If you want a smooth, uncomplicated user experience and don't mind lock-in with a tyrannical corporation, get an iPhone.
If you want things like freedom and openness and ethics and value and don't mind not having the "cool" phone that gets all the buzz, get an Android.
What exactly is the core audience for Windows Phone, and what are the traits that they value? I can't really think of anyone for whom Windows Phone would make more sense than either iOS or Android.
Considering that there are dozens upon dozens of different Android models it's only natural they'd have more market share.
There really is no logical causation between having many models and marketshare, no matter how often it is repeated.
If there were, everyone would just release more models.
There are many models of tablets that run non-Apple operating systems. Apple out sells them combined by 2-1.
Against some country like Iran or North Korea however, they give the commander in Chief the ability to hit a target very quickly, with almost zero chance of interception, with the power of redirection (or abort) and during daylight (which would be very useful if you want to KILL all THE high value PEOPLE working there).
Interesting and insightful pair of posts all around, but I have to ask. What's the deal with the capitalization? Subliminal messages? Adam West Batman impression?
No doubt, these things seem great for niche-markets. Color, motion-capable e-readers seem awesome.
I do hope that they find their niches, and get the funds to continue to improve the technology. Because if you could get the resolution/angles/contrast of modern mobile displays onto something like a Mirasol display that is low power and daylight-readable and low-eyestrain, obviously that would be the best case scenario.
We've been hearing about this technology for years now, and unfortunately it's taken it so long to get to market that I think they've missed their market window.
Smartphones and tablets, spurred on in large part by Apple, have entered into an arms race of display quality with consumer displays the likes has never been seen before. The sort of displays our mobile devices have make our computer monitors look shameful, with AMOLED pushing the boundaries in terms of true blacks and contrast ratios and viewing angles, and ever-higher resolutions pushing DPIs to the boundaries of human sight. Most LCD IPS displays, which are the cream of the crop for desktop monitors and better than any flat-screen TV, are really just average at best these days in the mobile world.
The Mirasol displays, at least the ones that have been demoed, have never been the highest quality displays. Their two huge advantages are daylight-readability and low power-consumption. Those are two very positive traits, but at this stage, I don't really foresee anything outside of a niche market giving up ordinary-circumstance display quality for these.
Also I am really wondering how your device charges while you are running video out to a TV...
MHL, it's a standard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_High-definition_Link
Video out and charging, simultaneously.
WTF? it's not hard to start messing with a satellite C&C. IT's not like they are on the internet and the older ones have completely open interfaces.
"Since the satellites are controlled from the Svalbard Satellite Station in Norway which often uses the Internet to transfer and access files, it is deemed highly likely that the hackers have managed to insinuate themselves into the station's system through its Internet connection."
Show me a single Android handset that was released even 6 months ago that is user upgradable to the latest Android version without any rooting or other hacks regardless of your carrier.
It's true Android has a problem with updates, but it's nowhere near what you're suggesting it is. It's actually incredibly easy to find Android handsets released in the last 6 months easily updated to the latest Android version. It's basically all of them. It's hard to think of a handset released in the last 6 months that isn't on Android 2.3, which is the latest released version for handsets.
That said, there does seem to be a distinct drop-off in the reliability of getting updates as time stretches on, with no published guarantees and wildly varying policies between manufacturers.
Err...the first iPhone had no app store either, i.e. "nothing that would make one call it more computer than phone." It, too, was "was really just a feature phone with a touch screen...and a few built-in apps."
I have no experience to comment on whether the Prada had a "full browser" but it definitely had a browser.
This is from one of the Android devs:
https://plus.google.com/112413860260589530492/posts/DDTKFhiDS9U
"Support for Encryption for Phones
Honeycomb added full-device encryption, but ICS brings it to phones."
Guess they figured it too boring for the launch demo.
That's not true. The only issue litigated in the German case that Dragonslicer was referencing was the Community Design he linked to. It is solely on the basis of that community design that an injunction was issued.
http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/08/preliminary-injunction-granted-by.html
Worth a billion dollars in terms of what?
Value of the device itself? Hardly.
Value of the device on the open-market to others? 10k is what they were able to fetch for it from Gizmodo
Value of the device to the victim, Apple? The police hardly take that into consideration when a starving artist has their laptop stolen containing all the work they need to make a living.
Value of the victim in terms of its political clout? Ah, that makes sense.
If the crime that is being alleged is the same, and the real-world value of the stolen property is the same, I don't see a reason off-hand why it's right that the police should be playing favorites.
What are the chances of the government going to such lengths if an ordinary person gets robbed? The ordinary response from police is that's nice, we'll look into it if we have nothing better to do. The crimes they were alleging are not different than the crimes that would be applicable if this were to happen to an ordinary person instead of a powerful corporation.
And then, the chutzpah of the DA's to call out the Gizmodo editors (who may or may not have deserved it) after conducting an illegal search...
How sinister can they et before they're as bad as people try and make them out to be?
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/10/03/1825234/facebook-files-for-a-patent-to-track-its-users-on-other-sites
I used the words Corporation X and Corporation Y specifically to avoid making those about Apple. I don't think Apple is worse than the others on sweatshop labor and the environment.
My last question is the one about Apple, about IP freedom and openness. Most people don't care about the issues of long-term innovation and IP.
That's because they have their own lives to live, and they view the issue as more marginal than it probably is. Translated, it's because people are selfish and because there is not an unlimited amount of time available to people to become educated.
It's not right or good, it's just true.
I don't know why you doubt that an Android tablet would have programs that are more mature. Android is hugely more popular than the Blackberry app platform, and most Android apps work fine on the Android tablets.
Why should they? That's a serious question, I'm not trying to troll here or be flamebait.
...
Just because the iPad doesn't fit your use case doesn't mean that anyone who doesn't want to do the things you do with computing equipment is somehow wrong, or that they should care about what you care about.
Well, this question is really the key question that cuts to the heart of a lot of problems with the human condition.
Why should people care about long-term benefit for mankind versus their own short-term desires? And the answer is rationally they shouldn't. Which is pretty much why the world is a crappy place in so many ways.
Why shouldn't I buy from Corporation X that outsources to sweatshops and is slowly sapping away the ability of America to compete in the future? I don't care about that issue because I'm not in a 3rd world country.
Why shouldn't I buy from Corporation Y that destroys the environment in a way that doesn't affect me? I don't care about the issue of the environment over there because it's far away from my house.
Why should I care about supporting an open ecosystem with fair intellectual property rights that guarantees innovation can't be choked by a single greedy corporation? I don't care about the issues of open ecosystems or fair IP, because I'm not a nerd and I only care about things right here and now.
You're right, they shouldn't care about those issues, rationally. However, these selfishnesses large and small are all morally wrong, and are at the root of much of shittiness of the human condition.
It's funny how you often see Apple fans saying this. But then when someone suggests that Apple should be regulated as a monopoly for its abusive practices surrounding its walled-garden, the fans' tunes immediately change (and I'm not addressing you in particular), and they say nooo there's a thriving ecosystem full of competition.
Though frankly, I think that the latter might be true. A year ago, people were saying that there is no tablet market, only an iPad market, and Apple's market share was hovering around 95% in tablets. At the last keynote, Apple was trumpeting that they control 75% of the market share in tablets. Losing 20% market share in a single year is actually pretty startling.
Now of course they had nowhere to go but down from 95%, but at 75% I think there actually is a tablet market, and not an iPad market, and any heavy-handed government regulation is probably uncalled for.
If you actually talk to people that have owned 7" tablets, you might have a different feeling.
10" tablets are like netbooks. They're inconvenient to carry around, and they're inconvenient to pull out on the go.
7" tablets slip easily into and out of a bag, or even a coat pocket.
Tellingly, review sites like Engadget that have access to every tablet under the sun are huge proponents of the 7" form factor. Engadget is always talking about what a great compromise it is beyond size and portability.
I think Amazon is going to blow this market wide open.
Not all of us ready educational and technical books, so it isn't really an "until they try to" situation as you put it.
Paperbacks dominate the market for books, and this thing has a form-factor similar to a paperback.
Frankly, for technical documents where I need to be flipping around a lot as opposed to reading straight through, paper kills any electronic medium.
No one knows for sure, but it is believed you can install your own Android apps.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2393740,00.asp
"Jenkins said he didn't know whether the bootloader was locked, which is one hurdle Android hackers face when altering their devices. The company won't help hackers root the tablet, it just isn't actively trying to stop them. The tablet has a USB port and mass storage mode, so you can also sideload Android APK program files, even without rooting it. That will be one way to get apps not available in Amazon's Appstore onto the Fire."
So it sounds like you're looking to buy a smartphone.
In that case, arguably one of the best smartphones on the market, and also one of the cheapest without a contract, is the Xiaomi phone, released by a Chinese startup. It's only sold in China, but it is pretty much the geekiest Android phone around. Given that it's hard to get outside of China, I wouldn't be surprised if you could re-sell it and recoup most or all of its cost when you get back to America.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/27/xiaomi-phone-review/
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2393740,00.asp#fbid=ajRIdnxQUAV
"Amazon isn't doing anything special to prevent techies from "rooting" and rewriting the software on its powerful yet inexpensive new tablet, Jon Jenkins, director of Amazon's Silk browser project said."
You were asking why people use Chrome, saying you can't understand it.
A user kindly took the time and extensively explained it. You dismissed all of his reasons, and continue to express puzzlement on why anyone would use Chrome.
It's not anecdotal if it's happening to a person personally, it's a fact. Similar to the anonymous user above, I switched to Chrome because it was faster than Firefox, and used less memory. I don't care that this doesn't happen on the Firefox dev's machines. It doesn't happen on my machine, either, when I use Chrome.