Apple routinely surveys their developers in the iOS program and Window Phone 7 isn't even a category for "other platforms" you can develop for. It's 15 minutes of questions that basically ask: "When do you plan to start developing for Android? What do you like about them? What can we do to make you happy?" The Android battle isn't even just Apple vs. Google anymore now that Amazon is planning an Android app store.
Even so it could be the competition, but I'd put my money on the recent anti-trust investigation as the reason Apple's slowing opening up.
"And you thought the Droid X's kill switch was bad."
Yes, I did. And it was much worse. What would it take to get slashdot to stop the over sensationalizing? There needs to be a Facebook to Slashdot's MySpace.
Even large ones have ridiculous aspect ratios designed for entertainment.
Perhaps you've never had to make revisions to something where you would want the original and new version side-by-side. Or wanted to keep an eye on a number of windows while still having enough space to work on a whole document. There's a reason that although you can hook up two monitors and line them up vertically, almost no one ever does.
It sounds like he's going to use a modified Femtocell. Since you can actually go out and buy these and they route phone calls over public networks, there any many potential points of attack. Considering if someone wants to listen to your cell phone calls and asks ATT nicely ATT will happily given them a room, or anybody with a radio scanner can listen to cordless phone calls and WiFi WPA2 has been cracked in several different ways, no one should be assuming privacy on anything wireless.
Nearly everything about how Apple has handled this has been wrong. From their disingenuous attempt to rebrand the problem "Antennagate" to stop the media from calling it the "Death Grip", to their feigned surprise that the iPhone signal bar calculation was heavily weighted to make the iPhone look like a strong performer.
Now they're showing off how much testing the phone went through, which seems indicate they knew it was glitchy from the start. Or did they? I mean after all, in one of the first reviews of the iPhone 4 before it was even released, Walt Mossberg said:
However, on at least six occasions during my tests, the new iPhone was either reporting “no service” or searching for a network while the old one, held in my other hand, was showing at least a couple of bars. Neither Apple nor AT&T could explain this.
So the very first review picked up on it, but they didn't have an explanation? They said they waited to have a press conference because they wanted to do testing to determine the problem, but doesn't that undermine the point that you've done adequate testing? Why after their press conference, is it still so unclear if they knew whether skin connecting the antennas was a problem or not?
The really bizarre thing is I've had an iPhone 4 since day 1, I've seen the glitch and until I got a case it had been affecting my data connections, but I still really like this phone! Is Apple turning us all into battered wives?
No, they said some people might have the problem that everyone's been blowing out of proportion. But only.5% (not 5 percent, half a percent) of users have even reported the problem.
No, they said 0.55 percent called AppleCare. That doesn't count people that called ATT, took their phone to a Genius Bar, or have the issue but were waiting to see what Apple would do based on internet reports that calling Apple or going to a Genius Bar resulted in nothing.
Most of the people foaming at the mouth about this don't even have iPhones, they just want to see Apple fail.
And there are plenty of people who aren't foaming at the mouth, but have a real problem and have been patiently waiting to see what Apple would do. My 3GS worked fine in areas where I can kill data connections by holding the phone in my left hand. Too bad I'm left-handed.
...the perception is that most people are having reception problems, which is simply not true. For most people the reception is better.
Except that according to Apple there is a higher rate of dropped calls. Slightly higher, but still higher. So "for most people" that would sound like slightly worse performance regardless of reception.
Because the media has created this perception, Apple is giving everyone free Bumpers.
According to Apple's Letter Regarding the iPhone 4, Apple is responsible for creating the perception by gaming the signal strength meter to make reception look good.
People keep calling for Apple to redesign the antenna and replace phones, but how many changes can they make before a new revision have to go through the 6 month FCC testing process? I'm guessing their hands are tied in terms of changes to the design. So inevitably free bumpers it will likely be.
I love the idea of this tool and the openness Google is promoting on their platform, but it occurred to me... This is a web app, so in theory Google not only has the source to any application developed with this tool, but they could actually have a log of the activity that created a given application. A lot of what Google does these days goes beyond storing information and routes everything through their servers. Google search watches you type to offer suggestions. Gmail stores your mail, but theoretically, Google Wave knows exactly how you typed your message. I believe their intentions are as noble as a for profit company can be, but we are really entering a brave new world when you develop software in a room where someone has an eye over your shoulder.
Microsoft may not have yet have hit the steep slope in its inevitable decline, but does anyone doubt that this is just the tip of the iceberg? They'll become full on IP patent trolls until the eventual winners (Google?) decide they're cheaper to buy than fight In court. It may be 20 years from now, but there's a great Microsoft IP war in our future.
One of apple's biggest blunders is not considering mobileme a loss leader.
Back when it was known as iTools, it was a loss leader. They gave that up after 2 years so there was a probably a good reason. Perhaps because people are willing to pay?
I've been trying to pre-order for the last two hours. Flashback to three years ago with the original iPhone activation debacle. I'm dismayed that Apple and AT&T haven't gotten their collective shit together in all this time.:-(
This is a huge step up from the original iPhone, where I had a shiny new iPhone and it wasn't activated for 3 days. (Leaving me with no working phone at all.) Why ATT can keep a server up while it hands out 100,000+ email addresses, but not for one of the most critical parts of their business, I'll never know.
Just imagine trying to do this from an iPhone in a major market!
The irony is.. that's probably the fastest way to do it. If you use the new "Apple Store" app on the iPhone, you can reserve a new iPhone 4G (for pickup) without them checking your current ATT account. After hours of trying the Apple website, reentering my phone number, zip code, social security digits, etc. I was able to reserve a phone in seconds. And I'm here in New York where 1 out of 5 phone calls drop.
I used to be able to drink a ton of coffee and fall asleep without any problem. It took me years to make the connection that I was having easily-interrupted, non-restful sleep due to caffeine. I've recently confirmed this with an iPhone app (Sleep Cycle) that measures your restlessness in bed while you sleep. I need to give it about 6 hours to get out of my system to really sleep well.
Which, unlike your quotation, is not removed from it's context. How, did you somehow read that I didn't say "fragmentation" isn't a big issue? When the vast majority of developers will never encounter it, fragmentation is not a big issue.
In the iTunes store, games are the biggest category of apps by far. (By any measure, money, downloads, etc.) The design of games are fundamentally tied to screen size, the controls available (keyboard vs. multitouch) and things like graphics hardware. Plus, on Android many are or will be written using the native SDK because they require higher performance (negating the magic of a VM).
Have these companies found a convenient way to use GPL code, whilst preventing their customers from doing the same?
The question is making a bad assumption (ie. Open source software can't run on closed hardware.) The hardware is closed, the software is not. The purpose of open source is still being served here. You can learn from this nameless company's modifications to the source, or use it to develop your own hardware or software, the benefits of more eyes on the code, etc.
Why are we assuming aliens would want a single point of contact? Unless they truly had a singular consciousness you would think they would understand that different groups of people would have different viewpoints. Once they are engaging in communication (either as their first contact or after some initial accidental encounter) you would think they would either communicate with multiple people or choose their point of contact based on their own criteria.
And realistically speaking: Could humanity organize in such a way that a single person could even be designated as the representative? Wouldn't the disenfranchised parties would attempt to slip notes under their door, assuming it doesn't turn into an all out shouting match?
I wonder how many Apple employees use Microsoft Office. Or Microsoft employees search with Google. Why are people so intent on declaring one product the winner that everybody should use? Did it benefit Microsoft to switch Hotmail to MS IIS before IIS was ready to handle a site of that scale? This isn't a failure for Microsoft's phone efforts as much as it is a victory against Microsoft's mono-culture mindset.
So find yourselves a revenue model, guys, one that actually works and that we can actually afford, or just go away.
Unfortunately that model might be even worse. Similar problems with TV viewers skipping ads on their DVRs have been affecting the TV industry and the result has been to move the ads into the shows. And before you say "That's why I don't watch TV", a lot of people here work in jobs where staying informed on computer technology is a requirement. So they can skip reading Ars or Slashdot, but they can't skip reading anything.
Technology news is generally news about products (ie. announcements , updates, plans, etc.) -- do you think you're going to be able to spot every time a product appears in an article because it's a paid sponsorship? Or an article that has conclusions influenced by money? And even if you could, how will you know about articles that were paid to disappear?
I block Flash (to kill the popover click the monkey spam) but I don't block ads because I want them to stay put in obvious little boxes. However, ad blocking isn't going away, so how about an ad blocker that continues to load the images and content but prevents them from being displayed? Sites and advertisers get the numbers -- we get to keep our attention and focus.
Trackpads have solved all of these problems a long time ago, they are not unique to "touch" interfaces, except that touch interfaces have undone many of the solutions already discovered.
Trackpads may have solved the problem of human fingers not behaving like a mouse, but the mouse was just a stand-in for human fingers to begin with. Does reshaping our intuitive human mental model of how to manipulate objects so that it matches a pointing device so that we can keep our punch the monkey ads make any sense?
Slashdot Mirror
Apple routinely surveys their developers in the iOS program and Window Phone 7 isn't even a category for "other platforms" you can develop for. It's 15 minutes of questions that basically ask: "When do you plan to start developing for Android? What do you like about them? What can we do to make you happy?" The Android battle isn't even just Apple vs. Google anymore now that Amazon is planning an Android app store.
Even so it could be the competition, but I'd put my money on the recent anti-trust investigation as the reason Apple's slowing opening up.
Yes, I did. And it was much worse. What would it take to get slashdot to stop the over sensationalizing? There needs to be a Facebook to Slashdot's MySpace.
Perhaps you've never had to make revisions to something where you would want the original and new version side-by-side. Or wanted to keep an eye on a number of windows while still having enough space to work on a whole document. There's a reason that although you can hook up two monitors and line them up vertically, almost no one ever does.
It sounds like he's going to use a modified Femtocell. Since you can actually go out and buy these and they route phone calls over public networks, there any many potential points of attack. Considering if someone wants to listen to your cell phone calls and asks ATT nicely ATT will happily given them a room, or anybody with a radio scanner can listen to cordless phone calls and WiFi WPA2 has been cracked in several different ways, no one should be assuming privacy on anything wireless.
Nearly everything about how Apple has handled this has been wrong. From their disingenuous attempt to rebrand the problem "Antennagate" to stop the media from calling it the "Death Grip", to their feigned surprise that the iPhone signal bar calculation was heavily weighted to make the iPhone look like a strong performer.
Now they're showing off how much testing the phone went through, which seems indicate they knew it was glitchy from the start. Or did they? I mean after all, in one of the first reviews of the iPhone 4 before it was even released, Walt Mossberg said:
So the very first review picked up on it, but they didn't have an explanation? They said they waited to have a press conference because they wanted to do testing to determine the problem, but doesn't that undermine the point that you've done adequate testing? Why after their press conference, is it still so unclear if they knew whether skin connecting the antennas was a problem or not?
The really bizarre thing is I've had an iPhone 4 since day 1, I've seen the glitch and until I got a case it had been affecting my data connections, but I still really like this phone! Is Apple turning us all into battered wives?
No, they said 0.55 percent called AppleCare. That doesn't count people that called ATT, took their phone to a Genius Bar, or have the issue but were waiting to see what Apple would do based on internet reports that calling Apple or going to a Genius Bar resulted in nothing.
And there are plenty of people who aren't foaming at the mouth, but have a real problem and have been patiently waiting to see what Apple would do. My 3GS worked fine in areas where I can kill data connections by holding the phone in my left hand. Too bad I'm left-handed.
Except that according to Apple there is a higher rate of dropped calls. Slightly higher, but still higher. So "for most people" that would sound like slightly worse performance regardless of reception.
According to Apple's Letter Regarding the iPhone 4, Apple is responsible for creating the perception by gaming the signal strength meter to make reception look good.
During the press conference tomorrow, could everyone turn off their WiFi stuff? I want to see the demos.
People keep calling for Apple to redesign the antenna and replace phones, but how many changes can they make before a new revision have to go through the 6 month FCC testing process? I'm guessing their hands are tied in terms of changes to the design. So inevitably free bumpers it will likely be.
Perhaps because they have to retool their productions lines to fix the defect?
I love the idea of this tool and the openness Google is promoting on their platform, but it occurred to me... This is a web app, so in theory Google not only has the source to any application developed with this tool, but they could actually have a log of the activity that created a given application. A lot of what Google does these days goes beyond storing information and routes everything through their servers. Google search watches you type to offer suggestions. Gmail stores your mail, but theoretically, Google Wave knows exactly how you typed your message. I believe their intentions are as noble as a for profit company can be, but we are really entering a brave new world when you develop software in a room where someone has an eye over your shoulder.
Microsoft may not have yet have hit the steep slope in its inevitable decline, but does anyone doubt that this is just the tip of the iceberg? They'll become full on IP patent trolls until the eventual winners (Google?) decide they're cheaper to buy than fight In court. It may be 20 years from now, but there's a great Microsoft IP war in our future.
Back when it was known as iTools, it was a loss leader. They gave that up after 2 years so there was a probably a good reason. Perhaps because people are willing to pay?
I'll bite... Don't you need to be part of a group to have people to call on a device? Which is more important in life really?
This is a huge step up from the original iPhone, where I had a shiny new iPhone and it wasn't activated for 3 days. (Leaving me with no working phone at all.) Why ATT can keep a server up while it hands out 100,000+ email addresses, but not for one of the most critical parts of their business, I'll never know.
The irony is.. that's probably the fastest way to do it. If you use the new "Apple Store" app on the iPhone, you can reserve a new iPhone 4G (for pickup) without them checking your current ATT account. After hours of trying the Apple website, reentering my phone number, zip code, social security digits, etc. I was able to reserve a phone in seconds. And I'm here in New York where 1 out of 5 phone calls drop.
Not all sleep is created equal.
I used to be able to drink a ton of coffee and fall asleep without any problem. It took me years to make the connection that I was having easily-interrupted, non-restful sleep due to caffeine. I've recently confirmed this with an iPhone app (Sleep Cycle) that measures your restlessness in bed while you sleep. I need to give it about 6 hours to get out of my system to really sleep well.
At first I thought the headline said "Caffeine Addicts Get Additional Perks", but I haven't had my coffee yet.
If you listen carefully, just before you hear the guy say "Road Clear" I'm pretty sure you can hear the robot say "Your move creep."
In the iTunes store, games are the biggest category of apps by far. (By any measure, money, downloads, etc.) The design of games are fundamentally tied to screen size, the controls available (keyboard vs. multitouch) and things like graphics hardware. Plus, on Android many are or will be written using the native SDK because they require higher performance (negating the magic of a VM).
So yes, fragmentation is a big issue.
The question is making a bad assumption (ie. Open source software can't run on closed hardware.) The hardware is closed, the software is not. The purpose of open source is still being served here. You can learn from this nameless company's modifications to the source, or use it to develop your own hardware or software, the benefits of more eyes on the code, etc.
Why are we assuming aliens would want a single point of contact? Unless they truly had a singular consciousness you would think they would understand that different groups of people would have different viewpoints. Once they are engaging in communication (either as their first contact or after some initial accidental encounter) you would think they would either communicate with multiple people or choose their point of contact based on their own criteria.
And realistically speaking: Could humanity organize in such a way that a single person could even be designated as the representative? Wouldn't the disenfranchised parties would attempt to slip notes under their door, assuming it doesn't turn into an all out shouting match?
I wonder how many Apple employees use Microsoft Office. Or Microsoft employees search with Google. Why are people so intent on declaring one product the winner that everybody should use? Did it benefit Microsoft to switch Hotmail to MS IIS before IIS was ready to handle a site of that scale? This isn't a failure for Microsoft's phone efforts as much as it is a victory against Microsoft's mono-culture mindset.
Unfortunately that model might be even worse. Similar problems with TV viewers skipping ads on their DVRs have been affecting the TV industry and the result has been to move the ads into the shows. And before you say "That's why I don't watch TV", a lot of people here work in jobs where staying informed on computer technology is a requirement. So they can skip reading Ars or Slashdot, but they can't skip reading anything.
Technology news is generally news about products (ie. announcements , updates, plans, etc.) -- do you think you're going to be able to spot every time a product appears in an article because it's a paid sponsorship? Or an article that has conclusions influenced by money? And even if you could, how will you know about articles that were paid to disappear?
I block Flash (to kill the popover click the monkey spam) but I don't block ads because I want them to stay put in obvious little boxes. However, ad blocking isn't going away, so how about an ad blocker that continues to load the images and content but prevents them from being displayed? Sites and advertisers get the numbers -- we get to keep our attention and focus.
If your DNA has nothing to hide, you should have nothing to fear. [/sarcasm]
Trackpads may have solved the problem of human fingers not behaving like a mouse, but the mouse was just a stand-in for human fingers to begin with. Does reshaping our intuitive human mental model of how to manipulate objects so that it matches a pointing device so that we can keep our punch the monkey ads make any sense?