1. Apple sells more than just PCs, before the iPod and iPhone, they were nothing. Low profits.
Even before the iPod, Apple was a successful and profitable company. After the iPod, they became the second most successful company on the planet.
2. ????? 3. Android just passed iOS in marketshare.:)
Nope. Last quarter iOS still outsold Android. And even if Android does outsell iOS this quarter (unlikely given the launch of the Verizon iPhone) or next quarter (*very* unlikely given the launch of iPad 2), Android will have a long way to go before there are more Android devices out there than iOS devices.
It may definitely happen, but even if it does, you're getting ahead of yourself.
Do Android fanboys even bother to think about the words they are replying to before reflexively reposting an irrelevant stat? It's only four words.
iOS (not iPhone, but all iOS devices) has outsold (has shipped more units) Android (devices with the Android OS)
Last quarter, going by even the *highest* estimates for Android sales, iOS has outsold Android OS. All the prior quarters, iOS's lead has been greater. The total number of iOS devices out there exceeds the total number of Android devices.
1. Market share of the OS is a simple, but incomplete metric. Apple makes more money than any other PC maker, and is just shy of greater profits and revenue than MS. So claiming MS has "won" is not so cut and dry.
I disagree, MS is the most prevalent OS on PC's around the world, you can call it an incomplete metric, but the fact is there are far more Windows OS than Apple OS.
You said you disagree, but you didn't back it up. All you did was restate a fact (that there are more Windows PCs than Mac OS X PCs. I don't dispute this, so I'm not sure what you are basing your disagreement on. It's strange to say that MS has beat Apple, when Apple is doing so well. By your judgement, it seems it's better to be the loser in this scenario. Sure, MS is on more PCs, but that doesn't seem to matter all that much.
How do you come by that? Android has a much larger market share than iOS, already: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Smartphone_share_current.png - they're now the largest mobile OS out there. In a few years, it's relatively safe to assume that gap will be even larger, as Symbian tends towards 0.
There are tons of problems with this. First and foremost, it's iPhone, not iOS. I'll list the others, but I don't want this first point to be lost, because it's really all that *needs* to be said.
But also, Apple reports actual sales numbers, while Android sales numbers are solely based on consultant firms' estimates, and even with the most recent estimates, going with the *highest* numbers by one group, Android OS, last quarter, did not outsell iOS, last quarter. And I also said "has outsold", not "does outsell" (although that is presently true as of the most recent numbers, I was trying to avoid debunking this whole thing. I should have known there are far too many Slashdotters here who think Android has outsold iOS for that to happen). Let's say that this quarter Android finally ships on more devices than iOS does, for the quarter, that won't catch them up over all the quarters in which they did not. Especially since many of those quarters they shipped zero. Apple has just sold over 100 million iPhones, and significantly more iOS devices (I could dig through numbers to come up with a specific amount, but it's probably somewhere between 150 million and 200 million).
So, yeah, iOS has most definitely outsold Android.
One must assume Google gets more than a buck or two for each phone you buy with "with Google" written on the back, like mine does.
And whatever Google gets per Android, one must assume Apple makes significantly more. That's why I said, later in this post, that even if Android were to ever outsell iOS 5 to 1, Apple would still make more money because of iOS than Android does because of Android. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Google doesn't actually make more from iOS devices presently than they do from Android devices.
Presumably, that adds up. Given Android's open nature, it has more companies developing for it
What the shit? iOS has *significantly* greater developer support.
which means Google gets benefits without even trying (as hard) as iOS. So I would say Google is already doing damn nicely out of Android and will continue to do so. In business speak, that's a "win". It's not even too far removed from getting "something for nothing".
The topic wasn't whether Android is a good business move for Google, it's whether Google has "won" (or is "winning" or will "win") over iOS. That's definitely not true now, and may eventually be true, but is definitely not the foregone conclusion so many here seem to think. Like I said above, even were Android to have a 5:1 market share lead over iOS (and that's an absurdly high number, btw), it won't be clear that Google as "won" over Apple. Presently, it's like Google is collecting dimes and Apple is collecting dollars (not a specific ratio, just that it's definitely a significantly skewed ratio. 10:1 in favor of Apple is probably an understatement). If Google ever collects more units (dimes) than Apple (dollars), that's not enough.
Back in 97, when MS bought into Apple, Apple had around 7% of the PC market. In 2010, Apple had about 8% of the PC market - so in the last almost 15 years, they have basically made no inroads at all. Dell, on the other hand, have 15% market share. In fact, the top 5 PC sellers are HP, Dell, Acer, Lennova and Toshiba. All of them doing basically zero research into the OS. This is basically true for mobile phones too, with Nokia, Samsung, LG, Rim and Sony taking the top 5 seller by manufacturer positions, all of them now movi
As I said, completely meaningless, for most people.
And Android OS is not completely "free as in speech". A core of it is, but if you want to include things like the Marketplace and other core features, you must agree to certain terms and end up only with "free as in beer".
That's only somewhat true. Up until the last version, iOS upgrades were $9.99. Whether that remains true going forward remains to be seen.
Not on iPhones. Apple used the accounting rules that allowed it free for iPhones, but a different accounting model for iPod touches.
If it does, you can almost assuredly thank Google for it. And if not, well, calling it free as long as you never want to upgrade isn't what I would call a complete truth.
Apple did this before Android even existed as a product. And I don't know where that last sentence even came from.
The bottom line is, comparing Google's involvement with Android to Apple's with iOS is fairly useless. Google isn't trying to directly monetize it, so the fact that they $0 they make from their OS is less than whatever Apple makes is largely irrelevant. For Google it's about suppressing iPhone, for fear that they could be essentially locked out by Apple cutting deals with Microsoft or somebody else for browsers/search engine defaults, which it is succeeding at to some degree; and on the flip side of that coin, getting more and more devices that rely on Google services into the hands of consumers, which it is also succeeding at. To what degree it ever overtakes Apple is relevant to Google only in very indirect ways.
That's exactly the point I was making. I wasn't talking about money made by selling Android, but money made directly because of Android use.
As an aside, your first point made me giggle. Comparing every dollar Apple makes to every dollar Microsoft makes tells you nothing other than, well, the ratio of all the dollars they make. His point was that Microsoft's approach of decoupling the OS from the hardware was vastly more successful than Apple's approach of only selling one with the other, and he's demonstrably right. That their MP3 players or phones are more successful than Microsoft's pitiful attempts in those arenas does nothing to disprove it. Windows makes Microsoft more money than OS X+computer makes Apple, and that's all the OP was saying.
It's relevant whenever anyone says Microsoft beat Apple. You bring up different business models, while ignoring the fact that MS Windows is a different business model and different product than Macintosh. If you want to just compare sales of the OS itself, MS makes *vastly* more than Apple. If you want to compare Macs to PCs, MS's OS ships on more PCs, but Apple brings in more on each of their PCs, so even if Apple's Macintosh revenues are less than MS's Windows revenues, they are at least in the same general realm. And if you want to compare MS to Apple, Apple is ahead in all but one category financially, so the claim that MS as won and Apple has lost is not terribly sensible.
That's absurd. Neither MS nor Apple succeeded or failed due to "evilness". Consumers didn't think, "Oh my, Apple is so evil. They are even more Microsoft than Microsoft! How awful!"
And they aren't doing so now, in either direction. Unlike what you might find so common in forums like Slashdot, consumers don't tend to think in cartoonish term like good and evil when it comes to consumer products.
Yes, in the year they released the phone that revolutionized the mobile market that has drawn to date over 100 million willing customers, they became more evil than ever because of this...
This idiotic bullshit of calling Apple (or any other company*) "evil" is one of the things that makes Slashdot seem childish and insignificant. Geeks are the ultimate drama queens.
* There are very few companies one could reasonably argue as being evil, or at least being major proponents of evilness. Monsanto and Halliburton come to mind. But calling Apple "evil" is absurd. Do you even know what the word "evil" means?
The fact that this question is being asked is, in my opinion, a sign of the times. I never thought I'd see the day when Apple is considered an "evil empire", and Microsoft is kind of the underdog/good-guy.
People have been saying this for over twenty years now. Nothing new here. What would be interesting is if common perception is that this is a valid question, and it's most definitely not.
forcing the end user to buy their hardware
No one has ever been forced to buy Apple hardware. In fact, most people don't buy their computers.
I think that we're going to see a repeat of the 90's here somewhat shortly with respect to mobile devices (aka "the next frontier"). Apple will insist on selling iPads and iPhones at $500 - $800 each, and Google will allow their OS to be placed on any device the consumer wants, decoupling the OS and hardware and ultimately "owning" the mobile marketspace, just like Microsoft beat Apple in terms of marketshare and continues to do so to this day.
Three problems...
1. Market share of the OS is a simple, but incomplete metric. Apple makes more money than any other PC maker, and is just shy of greater profits and revenue than MS. So claiming MS has "won" is not so cut and dry. 2. You are comparing iPhones to Android. You should be comparing iPhones (and other iOS devices) to Android phones and other Android devices. That an iPhone costs $199 and $299, but the Android OS is free is meaningless. iOS is free on iPhones too. 3. iOS has outsold Android. So your conclusion has yet to come to pass. But even if it ever does, you end up with the first point, how has that benefitted Google greater than iOS has benefitted Apple? Even if Android outsells iOS 5 to 1 (and it most certainly does not, and won't any time soon), how is that an example of Google beating Apple? Apple will still make far more from iOS than Google will be making from Android.
And, more on topic, what does this have to do with Apple being "evil"?
Exactly this. Calling Apple an "evil empire" is fundamentally non-conducive to debate. Either you hate Apple, and thus think they are evil, or you don't hate Apple, and think it's silly to call them evil (and fewer people hate Apple than don't, so they definitely don't count as "evil" in terms of popular opinion). Evil is a fairly harsh term, and few corporations deserve the adjective.
Even neither Microsoft nor Oracle deserve to be called "evil". Once you've done that, you've proxy Godwined your argument.
I still don't understand why someone would want to live the cheapest life that money can buy. You only get one shot at life. You get no credit in the end for having saved money. What good is a life if one doesn't splurge now and then? I understand there are times when splurging is either irresponsible, or perhaps even outright impossible, but that's obviously not the situation the OP finds himself in. Clearly he can afford the iPhone.
But more importantly, my issue is when someone chimes in giving someone static over spending more than the minimum absolutely necessary. It's not like he was spending *your* money. He was spending *his* money. As long as he's happy, what's it to you one way or the other?
I acknowledge that you may have found it worth it, but my priorities happen to differ.
You need to learn to realize that other people can have wildly different opinions about things
I thought I had said that. If not, that's what I meant; how should I have worded it?
Maybe, but I did not get the impression that you realized his opinion could be *wildly* different than yours, and instead that he simply valued Genius so much that it overwhelmed everything else, when in reality I suspect that a lot of the things that you see as "advantages" of Android over iOS are not the same to him as they are to you.
But my main issue is that you seemed so eager to question his choice in device/OS. It really doesn't concern you (or me). I never give anyone shit for buying Android. I understand they had their reasons. Sure, if they ask my opinion, I'll chime in. Otherwise, to each his own. Life's too short to worry about such things.
the WAC maps nearly the whole Moon every month, in 7 wavelengths
Why do they give us only one?
White isn't a wavelength. They most likely took some or all 7 of the wavelengths and processed them together into this greyscale image.
These sorts of "cameras" don't take normal photographs. They are scientific instruments, and the data has to be heavily processed if they are to be made into useful and appealing images. None of the images from Hubble are how the things it's showing look, they are all false-color, which means the scientists gave each wavelength a color, and processed them together to give a coherent image. This is because the filters (which only allow certain wavelengths to reach the sensor) are not red, green, and blue, like on your digital camera (or cyan, yellow, and magenta, like on your printer), because RGB (or CYM) are not scientifically useful wavelengths. For Hubble, the wavelengths of things like Hydrogen are far more useful. These false-color images work great with something like a nebula, but don't work well at all with the Moon, unless you'd find a psychedelic image of the Moon useful.
If the camera on the orbiter has RGB or CYM, then it's possible to make a full-color image. The regolith on the Moon isn't terribly colorful, so even if it were in color, it would look pretty much like it does now, but at three times the file size. That's assuming the scientists chose to add three primary colors to the set of filters, each of which adds cost, complexity, and weight to the mission.
Yes house fires are nasty, lukilly they are rare and uncorrelated enough that insurance against them is affordable.
OTOH i've never heard of anyone insuring a media collection that requires online activation based DRM (as opposed to mere copy protection) against the provider going out of buisness and given that such an event would hit a load of people at once it would be difficult to insure against on a large scale without exposing the insurers to unacceptable risk.
Which has absolutely nothing to do with iTunes music, and is a somewhat unreasonable near-term fear with regards to Apple. Specifically, what are the odds, do you think, that Apple will shut down their authorization servers any time soon? By 2030, for example, do you think people will be unable to authorize their computer with Apple (for non-music purchases, music purchases won't require this, and perhaps by then, neither will any other media).
I expect internal optical drives to become a thing of the past, like the floppy, long before Apple shuts down their authorization servers.
What is this fascination with the cheapest possible device that can do some specific function? BadAnalogyGuy didn't say he bought an iPhone because it's the only phone that can play music, he said it bought it because it can. No matter which phone he chose (including a $50-ish Nokia), he would have had the same reasoning. It's not that he bought an iPhone specifically, but that he got a new phone in order to play music.
What bothers you so much about him buying an iPhone anyway? I never give people shit for buying a Droid or whatever. It's none of my business, and a silly thing to get worked up about.
No matter what the interface, as long as it's sufficiently reasonable, there will always be some people from each broad category (like "geeks" and "non-technical", etc.) who like each interface. The question isn't whether there is one non-techie who finds Android easier. What matters is that category in aggregate.
I do trust you don't think that your wife is representative of this category as a whole. Simple observation of society outside of your immediate household does tend to show that your household is the anomaly here. In fact, I'm being overly reserved here, what I should say is that it's extremely rare to hear *anyone*, even a hard-core geek, claim that Android is easier to use than iOS. The closest you'll ever really hear is that, for the geek, Android offers flexibility that allows them to go beyond the confines of the interface (similar to how command-line jockeys will describe the CLI compared to the GUI. It's not that the CLI is generally easier, but that it's easier to do more advanced things).
If I were to make a completely wild guess, I would guess that it's the notifications system/lock screen information that your wife finds easier. I've not used Android much, but I can see that that is something that a lot of regular people would find compelling.
I just got an iPhone 4. [...] one of the key reasons I bought the iPhone was because of its MP3 capabilities. [...] I really like the Genius automatic playlist generator. I use it to all the time.
I was under the impression that all Android-powered phones could play MP3 music as well. So of all the advantages that Android has over iOS, it appears you gave them up for Genius playlists. I acknowledge that you may have found it worth it, but my priorities happen to differ.
Any advantages you think Android has over iOS are 100% opinion, just as any advantages iOS has over Android are 100% opinion (even things that are objective, like "Android has WiFi tethering, iOS does not" (no longer true, but it was) or "iOS supports 'Retina' display resolutions, Android does not", are subjective in terms of whether they are an advantage and/or how important such an advantage is to each individual person)). What makes one thing an advantage, and to what extent, it relative. For most people, iOS is a far better solution. For some, *especially* a certain type of geek, iOS is entirely out of the question. Presumably, you are one of these people. That is completely fine. However, you must understand that there are other people who *aren't* like you.
It's not just one feature (like the Genius feature, which is fantastic btw). The fact that you think he chose an iPhone simply because of that one feature, in spite of "all the [other] advantages" you think Android has over iOS is extremely self-centered. You need to learn to realize that other people can have wildly different opinions about things, even things which are polarizing, like the App Store. Very, *very* few people actually care about the lock-in, many (who are even aware of this "issue"), find it a plus, and a few find it to be (their words) "evil" and "akin to slavery". I think the people in the last category are more than a bit mad, but I don't generally try to convince them otherwise, it's their life, let them live it how they want. To each his own. But I do try to point out that their opinion is nowhere near universal, and that most people feel quite the exact opposite. I point this out to them because far too often these people think Android is going to win out because of this one singular issue.
The really annoying thing, however, is if he said he bought an Android phone, you wouldn't find me questioning the choice *he* make for *his* phone with *his* money. It's none of my fucking business, and none of yours. Yet *I'm* the one that gets called the "fanboy".
Anyway, what I'm getting at is that buying the CD gives me something that iTunes music downloaders don't get. That is unlimited access to my music without DRM and without having to pay some online service for it.
Unless you didn't phrase what you meant very well, iTunes downloads offer the exact same thing. Unlimited access to your music without DRM and without any further payment to an online service (you do have to pay initially, but you have to do the same thing with CDs).
I recommend you also buy CDs so that you don't have the DRM problem mentioned in the article.
This story is not about DRM, it's about redownloading music. This goes above and beyond the CD. If you lose your CD, you don't get a free replacement. That's what Apple is trying to get for people who buy their music online.
DRM tracks could always be bunt to CD (which are DRM free though the quality loss and/or size increase that results from this method of drm removal is annoying)
No quality is lost in burning to a CD, and neither is it necessarily lost in re-ripping from a CD. Re-encoding the rip using a lossy codec (which is a reasonable expectation), does result in quality loss, but is not likely all that noticeable if you rip back to 256kbps AAC. iTunes has an options to transcode tracks to 128kbps AAC when songs are transferred to iPods/iPhones/iPads, and the quality difference is not generally apparent.
I shoot in RAW, and have transferred over 600 shots in a single go onto my iPad. Never had a single problem. And you don't have to delete them one at a time.
The transfer will last 6 times as long and the pix will take up 6 times as much space.
Yes, that's what happens when you shoot in JPG+RAW. This is fundamental, and I'm surprised you are having trouble with this.
If you're wondering why it imports both the RAW and JPG (I don't know what it defaults to in what it shows you, but it definitely works with RAW files just fine), it's so people can import into their iPad, then import from there into their computer. Imagine the disappointment a user will face if they got back to their computer and their RAWs were all gone.
Now, on an Android device this would not be a problem. A programmer would just write an app to fix this.
For what purpose? Better to keep it simple. All it is is transferring photos to the device, not something you need much complexity on. But if you *do* want to do things the hard way, yes, you should probably be using Android.
On the iPad, third party apps are not allowed to delete images from the storage. Of course, this is all 'to make it easier for the user'.
Safer for the user. "Oops, our app deleted all your photos. Sorry."
This is 'news for nerds', no self-respecting nerd would defend such 'design'. You do. So, my conclusion is that you don't belong here. Try some Apple fanboy forum;)
It's not "news for stuck-up elitist geeks", so what are you doing here? You're not the arbiter of what qualifies as a geek or nerd topic. The very notion that nerds/geeks should all have the same preferences is absurd.
Apple puts out some serious tech, and they show you where everyone else will be following a year or two later. If you don't think that's news for nerds, maybe you should just ignore the Apple stories or find a new site yourself? Also, if you find it difficult to use an iPad... well, just saying maybe you shouldn't be so quick to revoke someone's geek card, just saying.
which doesnt allow you to plug in a USB stick or anything
Yes, it does. You just need a DCIM folder. It only uses storage for photos and videos. It also supports keyboards and audio devices.
Either way, the way iOS hides any concept of a filesystem would make it rather difficult to integrate internal storage into the user interface.
This is by design. iOS is a "post PC" OS, and doing away with visible filesystems is part of this paradigm.
The ipad isnt a computer, and the OS doesnt do computer things, so it isnt the device for me anyway...
It's understandable that it's not the device for you, but you are absolutely incorrect in saying that the iPad isn't a computer and that the OS doesn't do computer things. Laughably incorrect, in fact. Not only is the iPad a computer, but it's the future of where computing is going. Don't worry, though, more traditional style computers will never go away, so you will always be able to wallow in complexity to your heart's content, but most people aren't interested in that, and Apple is going to serve them very well in the years to come.
For a hint at how powerful a thing this is, consider the original iPod, which completely hides the filesystem, unlike most other mp3 players of the time (and amazingly, some even to this very day). Plenty of geeks blew a gasket over this, and still do, preferring to manage their music as files and folders directly. Most everyone else doesn't. That's because they don't care about the *files*, they care about the *documents* (in this case, the music). The iPod isn't a computer, but the same ease of use is applicable to real computers, like the iPad.
But, like I said, your ability to buy computers which expose this will never go away, just don't expect everyone to remain stuck in the old paradigm, just like the CLI has not (and will never) go away, even though relatively few people ever use them.
Not really. There are clear technical reasons (size, power use) why netbooks don't have optical drives. There are no technical reasons why the huge iPad couldn't include a tiny cheap SDHC slot.
That's completely different. It's *why* it's not included. The fact is that netbooks don't have optical drives. The question Entropius asked is equally apt in that case.
The only reason it's not there is because it's incompatible. Incompatible with Apple's policy of squeezing out their customers.
That makes no sense. The correct answer is not enough people want it to warrant its inclusion, but enough do want it to warrant the add-on. I can't understand why this is so difficult to grasp.
If you look at the ports and button on the iPad (and iPhone and iPod) you will notice that there are as few as possible. This simplicity is part of the appeal of Apple products. People who clamor for USB ports and SD slots completely ignore this. Apple offers both USB and SD for those that want it, without burdening those that don't.
Not to worry though, I have an iPad and the camera connection kit and the iPad still sucks at doing anything with photo's...
As do I, and I have no trouble with photos on the iPad. It seems the problem lies with the operator.
That's ridiculous. An SD slot is tiny and you could easily fit 10 of them in an ipad.
You have to connect them to the case, you have to wire them up, which brings in the need for extra chips. And there's the internal volume of the connector and the space left empty for the card to be inserted. This all can add up to multiple cubic centimeters, each of which are important in such a small enclosure.
And then you claim that optional external storage makes the thing too hard to use. What the hell are you doing on Slashdot?
Are you dense? It makes it too hard for the target audience, which is "everyone" and not just the technologically adept.
It's iTunes and the lack of decent external storage that make my ipad hard to use. A great app like Goodreader needs to have its own ftp client built in to be able to retrieve PDF's from a server. It's not alone in that. Lots of apps are jumping through hoops to transfer files to or from the device. They all scream: broken by design.
It's not that it's broken, but that it's incomplete. Apple really needs to add a universal WebDAV and SMB API for apps to use, as well as a common storage pool. But if they get this wrong, it's worse than not having it at all for most users. For the more technologically adept, jumping through hoops and rough edges aren't that much of a problem.
Your post reflects very well why a certain breed of geeks tend to thumb their nose at iOS devices, and why they seem so thoroughly incapable of understanding why iOS is better for most everyone who isn't them.
Apple doesn't sell an e-reader, the Kindle isn't a tablet. Their markets overlap, but they aren't the same market.
The iPad's battery lasts quite long enough to serve as an e-reader. But yes, if you want to read for more than 10 hours in a sitting*, you might be better off with a Kindle.
* However, since you can turn down the brightness significantly in iBooks (and I think the other ebook apps), if you are reading at night you will likely get much more than 10 hours of reading time, if you want.
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1. Apple sells more than just PCs, before the iPod and iPhone, they were nothing. Low profits.
Even before the iPod, Apple was a successful and profitable company. After the iPod, they became the second most successful company on the planet.
2. ????? :)
3. Android just passed iOS in marketshare.
Nope. Last quarter iOS still outsold Android. And even if Android does outsell iOS this quarter (unlikely given the launch of the Verizon iPhone) or next quarter (*very* unlikely given the launch of iPad 2), Android will have a long way to go before there are more Android devices out there than iOS devices.
It may definitely happen, but even if it does, you're getting ahead of yourself.
Do Android fanboys even bother to think about the words they are replying to before reflexively reposting an irrelevant stat? It's only four words.
iOS (not iPhone, but all iOS devices)
has outsold (has shipped more units)
Android (devices with the Android OS)
Last quarter, going by even the *highest* estimates for Android sales, iOS has outsold Android OS. All the prior quarters, iOS's lead has been greater. The total number of iOS devices out there exceeds the total number of Android devices.
So, yes. Indeed.
Three problems...
1. Market share of the OS is a simple, but incomplete metric. Apple makes more money than any other PC maker, and is just shy of greater profits and revenue than MS. So claiming MS has "won" is not so cut and dry.
I disagree, MS is the most prevalent OS on PC's around the world, you can call it an incomplete metric, but the fact is there are far more Windows OS than Apple OS.
You said you disagree, but you didn't back it up. All you did was restate a fact (that there are more Windows PCs than Mac OS X PCs. I don't dispute this, so I'm not sure what you are basing your disagreement on. It's strange to say that MS has beat Apple, when Apple is doing so well. By your judgement, it seems it's better to be the loser in this scenario. Sure, MS is on more PCs, but that doesn't seem to matter all that much.
3. iOS has outsold Android.
How do you come by that? Android has a much larger market share than iOS, already:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Smartphone_share_current.png - they're now the largest mobile OS out there. In a few years, it's relatively safe to assume that gap will be even larger, as Symbian tends towards 0.
There are tons of problems with this. First and foremost, it's iPhone, not iOS. I'll list the others, but I don't want this first point to be lost, because it's really all that *needs* to be said.
But also, Apple reports actual sales numbers, while Android sales numbers are solely based on consultant firms' estimates, and even with the most recent estimates, going with the *highest* numbers by one group, Android OS, last quarter, did not outsell iOS, last quarter. And I also said "has outsold", not "does outsell" (although that is presently true as of the most recent numbers, I was trying to avoid debunking this whole thing. I should have known there are far too many Slashdotters here who think Android has outsold iOS for that to happen). Let's say that this quarter Android finally ships on more devices than iOS does, for the quarter, that won't catch them up over all the quarters in which they did not. Especially since many of those quarters they shipped zero. Apple has just sold over 100 million iPhones, and significantly more iOS devices (I could dig through numbers to come up with a specific amount, but it's probably somewhere between 150 million and 200 million).
So, yeah, iOS has most definitely outsold Android.
One must assume Google gets more than a buck or two for each phone you buy with "with Google" written on the back, like mine does.
And whatever Google gets per Android, one must assume Apple makes significantly more. That's why I said, later in this post, that even if Android were to ever outsell iOS 5 to 1, Apple would still make more money because of iOS than Android does because of Android. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Google doesn't actually make more from iOS devices presently than they do from Android devices.
Presumably, that adds up. Given Android's open nature, it has more companies developing for it
What the shit? iOS has *significantly* greater developer support.
which means Google gets benefits without even trying (as hard) as iOS. So I would say Google is already doing damn nicely out of Android and will continue to do so. In business speak, that's a "win". It's not even too far removed from getting "something for nothing".
The topic wasn't whether Android is a good business move for Google, it's whether Google has "won" (or is "winning" or will "win") over iOS. That's definitely not true now, and may eventually be true, but is definitely not the foregone conclusion so many here seem to think. Like I said above, even were Android to have a 5:1 market share lead over iOS (and that's an absurdly high number, btw), it won't be clear that Google as "won" over Apple. Presently, it's like Google is collecting dimes and Apple is collecting dollars (not a specific ratio, just that it's definitely a significantly skewed ratio. 10:1 in favor of Apple is probably an understatement). If Google ever collects more units (dimes) than Apple (dollars), that's not enough.
Back in 97, when MS bought into Apple, Apple had around 7% of the PC market. In 2010, Apple had about 8% of the PC market - so in the last almost 15 years, they have basically made no inroads at all. Dell, on the other hand, have 15% market share. In fact, the top 5 PC sellers are HP, Dell, Acer, Lennova and Toshiba. All of them doing basically zero research into the OS. This is basically true for mobile phones too, with Nokia, Samsung, LG, Rim and Sony taking the top 5 seller by manufacturer positions, all of them now movi
As I said, completely meaningless, for most people.
And Android OS is not completely "free as in speech". A core of it is, but if you want to include things like the Marketplace and other core features, you must agree to certain terms and end up only with "free as in beer".
That's only somewhat true. Up until the last version, iOS upgrades were $9.99. Whether that remains true going forward remains to be seen.
Not on iPhones. Apple used the accounting rules that allowed it free for iPhones, but a different accounting model for iPod touches.
If it does, you can almost assuredly thank Google for it. And if not, well, calling it free as long as you never want to upgrade isn't what I would call a complete truth.
Apple did this before Android even existed as a product. And I don't know where that last sentence even came from.
The bottom line is, comparing Google's involvement with Android to Apple's with iOS is fairly useless. Google isn't trying to directly monetize it, so the fact that they $0 they make from their OS is less than whatever Apple makes is largely irrelevant. For Google it's about suppressing iPhone, for fear that they could be essentially locked out by Apple cutting deals with Microsoft or somebody else for browsers/search engine defaults, which it is succeeding at to some degree; and on the flip side of that coin, getting more and more devices that rely on Google services into the hands of consumers, which it is also succeeding at. To what degree it ever overtakes Apple is relevant to Google only in very indirect ways.
That's exactly the point I was making. I wasn't talking about money made by selling Android, but money made directly because of Android use.
As an aside, your first point made me giggle. Comparing every dollar Apple makes to every dollar Microsoft makes tells you nothing other than, well, the ratio of all the dollars they make. His point was that Microsoft's approach of decoupling the OS from the hardware was vastly more successful than Apple's approach of only selling one with the other, and he's demonstrably right. That their MP3 players or phones are more successful than Microsoft's pitiful attempts in those arenas does nothing to disprove it. Windows makes Microsoft more money than OS X+computer makes Apple, and that's all the OP was saying.
It's relevant whenever anyone says Microsoft beat Apple. You bring up different business models, while ignoring the fact that MS Windows is a different business model and different product than Macintosh. If you want to just compare sales of the OS itself, MS makes *vastly* more than Apple. If you want to compare Macs to PCs, MS's OS ships on more PCs, but Apple brings in more on each of their PCs, so even if Apple's Macintosh revenues are less than MS's Windows revenues, they are at least in the same general realm. And if you want to compare MS to Apple, Apple is ahead in all but one category financially, so the claim that MS as won and Apple has lost is not terribly sensible.
That's absurd. Neither MS nor Apple succeeded or failed due to "evilness". Consumers didn't think, "Oh my, Apple is so evil. They are even more Microsoft than Microsoft! How awful!"
And they aren't doing so now, in either direction. Unlike what you might find so common in forums like Slashdot, consumers don't tend to think in cartoonish term like good and evil when it comes to consumer products.
Yes, in the year they released the phone that revolutionized the mobile market that has drawn to date over 100 million willing customers, they became more evil than ever because of this...
This idiotic bullshit of calling Apple (or any other company*) "evil" is one of the things that makes Slashdot seem childish and insignificant. Geeks are the ultimate drama queens.
* There are very few companies one could reasonably argue as being evil, or at least being major proponents of evilness. Monsanto and Halliburton come to mind. But calling Apple "evil" is absurd. Do you even know what the word "evil" means?
The fact that this question is being asked is, in my opinion, a sign of the times. I never thought I'd see the day when Apple is considered an "evil empire", and Microsoft is kind of the underdog/good-guy.
People have been saying this for over twenty years now. Nothing new here. What would be interesting is if common perception is that this is a valid question, and it's most definitely not.
forcing the end user to buy their hardware
No one has ever been forced to buy Apple hardware. In fact, most people don't buy their computers.
I think that we're going to see a repeat of the 90's here somewhat shortly with respect to mobile devices (aka "the next frontier"). Apple will insist on selling iPads and iPhones at $500 - $800 each, and Google will allow their OS to be placed on any device the consumer wants, decoupling the OS and hardware and ultimately "owning" the mobile marketspace, just like Microsoft beat Apple in terms of marketshare and continues to do so to this day.
Three problems...
1. Market share of the OS is a simple, but incomplete metric. Apple makes more money than any other PC maker, and is just shy of greater profits and revenue than MS. So claiming MS has "won" is not so cut and dry.
2. You are comparing iPhones to Android. You should be comparing iPhones (and other iOS devices) to Android phones and other Android devices. That an iPhone costs $199 and $299, but the Android OS is free is meaningless. iOS is free on iPhones too.
3. iOS has outsold Android. So your conclusion has yet to come to pass. But even if it ever does, you end up with the first point, how has that benefitted Google greater than iOS has benefitted Apple? Even if Android outsells iOS 5 to 1 (and it most certainly does not, and won't any time soon), how is that an example of Google beating Apple? Apple will still make far more from iOS than Google will be making from Android.
And, more on topic, what does this have to do with Apple being "evil"?
Exactly this. Calling Apple an "evil empire" is fundamentally non-conducive to debate. Either you hate Apple, and thus think they are evil, or you don't hate Apple, and think it's silly to call them evil (and fewer people hate Apple than don't, so they definitely don't count as "evil" in terms of popular opinion). Evil is a fairly harsh term, and few corporations deserve the adjective.
Even neither Microsoft nor Oracle deserve to be called "evil". Once you've done that, you've proxy Godwined your argument.
I still don't understand why someone would want to live the cheapest life that money can buy. You only get one shot at life. You get no credit in the end for having saved money. What good is a life if one doesn't splurge now and then? I understand there are times when splurging is either irresponsible, or perhaps even outright impossible, but that's obviously not the situation the OP finds himself in. Clearly he can afford the iPhone.
But more importantly, my issue is when someone chimes in giving someone static over spending more than the minimum absolutely necessary. It's not like he was spending *your* money. He was spending *his* money. As long as he's happy, what's it to you one way or the other?
I acknowledge that you may have found it worth it, but my priorities happen to differ.
You need to learn to realize that other people can have wildly different opinions about things
I thought I had said that. If not, that's what I meant; how should I have worded it?
Maybe, but I did not get the impression that you realized his opinion could be *wildly* different than yours, and instead that he simply valued Genius so much that it overwhelmed everything else, when in reality I suspect that a lot of the things that you see as "advantages" of Android over iOS are not the same to him as they are to you.
But my main issue is that you seemed so eager to question his choice in device/OS. It really doesn't concern you (or me). I never give anyone shit for buying Android. I understand they had their reasons. Sure, if they ask my opinion, I'll chime in. Otherwise, to each his own. Life's too short to worry about such things.
According to the NASA article,
the WAC maps nearly the whole Moon every month, in 7 wavelengths
Why do they give us only one?
White isn't a wavelength. They most likely took some or all 7 of the wavelengths and processed them together into this greyscale image.
These sorts of "cameras" don't take normal photographs. They are scientific instruments, and the data has to be heavily processed if they are to be made into useful and appealing images. None of the images from Hubble are how the things it's showing look, they are all false-color, which means the scientists gave each wavelength a color, and processed them together to give a coherent image. This is because the filters (which only allow certain wavelengths to reach the sensor) are not red, green, and blue, like on your digital camera (or cyan, yellow, and magenta, like on your printer), because RGB (or CYM) are not scientifically useful wavelengths. For Hubble, the wavelengths of things like Hydrogen are far more useful. These false-color images work great with something like a nebula, but don't work well at all with the Moon, unless you'd find a psychedelic image of the Moon useful.
If the camera on the orbiter has RGB or CYM, then it's possible to make a full-color image. The regolith on the Moon isn't terribly colorful, so even if it were in color, it would look pretty much like it does now, but at three times the file size. That's assuming the scientists chose to add three primary colors to the set of filters, each of which adds cost, complexity, and weight to the mission.
Yes house fires are nasty, lukilly they are rare and uncorrelated enough that insurance against them is affordable.
OTOH i've never heard of anyone insuring a media collection that requires online activation based DRM (as opposed to mere copy protection) against the provider going out of buisness and given that such an event would hit a load of people at once it would be difficult to insure against on a large scale without exposing the insurers to unacceptable risk.
Which has absolutely nothing to do with iTunes music, and is a somewhat unreasonable near-term fear with regards to Apple. Specifically, what are the odds, do you think, that Apple will shut down their authorization servers any time soon? By 2030, for example, do you think people will be unable to authorize their computer with Apple (for non-music purchases, music purchases won't require this, and perhaps by then, neither will any other media).
I expect internal optical drives to become a thing of the past, like the floppy, long before Apple shuts down their authorization servers.
What is this fascination with the cheapest possible device that can do some specific function? BadAnalogyGuy didn't say he bought an iPhone because it's the only phone that can play music, he said it bought it because it can. No matter which phone he chose (including a $50-ish Nokia), he would have had the same reasoning. It's not that he bought an iPhone specifically, but that he got a new phone in order to play music.
What bothers you so much about him buying an iPhone anyway? I never give people shit for buying a Droid or whatever. It's none of my business, and a silly thing to get worked up about.
No matter what the interface, as long as it's sufficiently reasonable, there will always be some people from each broad category (like "geeks" and "non-technical", etc.) who like each interface. The question isn't whether there is one non-techie who finds Android easier. What matters is that category in aggregate.
I do trust you don't think that your wife is representative of this category as a whole. Simple observation of society outside of your immediate household does tend to show that your household is the anomaly here. In fact, I'm being overly reserved here, what I should say is that it's extremely rare to hear *anyone*, even a hard-core geek, claim that Android is easier to use than iOS. The closest you'll ever really hear is that, for the geek, Android offers flexibility that allows them to go beyond the confines of the interface (similar to how command-line jockeys will describe the CLI compared to the GUI. It's not that the CLI is generally easier, but that it's easier to do more advanced things).
If I were to make a completely wild guess, I would guess that it's the notifications system/lock screen information that your wife finds easier. I've not used Android much, but I can see that that is something that a lot of regular people would find compelling.
I just got an iPhone 4. [...] one of the key reasons I bought the iPhone was because of its MP3 capabilities. [...] I really like the Genius automatic playlist generator. I use it to all the time.
I was under the impression that all Android-powered phones could play MP3 music as well. So of all the advantages that Android has over iOS, it appears you gave them up for Genius playlists. I acknowledge that you may have found it worth it, but my priorities happen to differ.
Any advantages you think Android has over iOS are 100% opinion, just as any advantages iOS has over Android are 100% opinion (even things that are objective, like "Android has WiFi tethering, iOS does not" (no longer true, but it was) or "iOS supports 'Retina' display resolutions, Android does not", are subjective in terms of whether they are an advantage and/or how important such an advantage is to each individual person)). What makes one thing an advantage, and to what extent, it relative. For most people, iOS is a far better solution. For some, *especially* a certain type of geek, iOS is entirely out of the question. Presumably, you are one of these people. That is completely fine. However, you must understand that there are other people who *aren't* like you.
It's not just one feature (like the Genius feature, which is fantastic btw). The fact that you think he chose an iPhone simply because of that one feature, in spite of "all the [other] advantages" you think Android has over iOS is extremely self-centered. You need to learn to realize that other people can have wildly different opinions about things, even things which are polarizing, like the App Store. Very, *very* few people actually care about the lock-in, many (who are even aware of this "issue"), find it a plus, and a few find it to be (their words) "evil" and "akin to slavery". I think the people in the last category are more than a bit mad, but I don't generally try to convince them otherwise, it's their life, let them live it how they want. To each his own. But I do try to point out that their opinion is nowhere near universal, and that most people feel quite the exact opposite. I point this out to them because far too often these people think Android is going to win out because of this one singular issue.
The really annoying thing, however, is if he said he bought an Android phone, you wouldn't find me questioning the choice *he* make for *his* phone with *his* money. It's none of my fucking business, and none of yours. Yet *I'm* the one that gets called the "fanboy".
And if you lose your CD, you do not get a free replacement either.
Anyway, what I'm getting at is that buying the CD gives me something that iTunes music downloaders don't get. That is unlimited access to my music without DRM and without having to pay some online service for it.
Unless you didn't phrase what you meant very well, iTunes downloads offer the exact same thing. Unlimited access to your music without DRM and without any further payment to an online service (you do have to pay initially, but you have to do the same thing with CDs).
I recommend you also buy CDs so that you don't have the DRM problem mentioned in the article.
This story is not about DRM, it's about redownloading music. This goes above and beyond the CD. If you lose your CD, you don't get a free replacement. That's what Apple is trying to get for people who buy their music online.
DRM tracks could always be bunt to CD (which are DRM free though the quality loss and/or size increase that results from this method of drm removal is annoying)
No quality is lost in burning to a CD, and neither is it necessarily lost in re-ripping from a CD. Re-encoding the rip using a lossy codec (which is a reasonable expectation), does result in quality loss, but is not likely all that noticeable if you rip back to 256kbps AAC. iTunes has an options to transcode tracks to 128kbps AAC when songs are transferred to iPods/iPhones/iPads, and the quality difference is not generally apparent.
I shoot in RAW, and have transferred over 600 shots in a single go onto my iPad. Never had a single problem. And you don't have to delete them one at a time.
The transfer will last 6 times as long and the pix will take up 6 times as much space.
Yes, that's what happens when you shoot in JPG+RAW. This is fundamental, and I'm surprised you are having trouble with this.
If you're wondering why it imports both the RAW and JPG (I don't know what it defaults to in what it shows you, but it definitely works with RAW files just fine), it's so people can import into their iPad, then import from there into their computer. Imagine the disappointment a user will face if they got back to their computer and their RAWs were all gone.
Now, on an Android device this would not be a problem. A programmer would just write an app to fix this.
For what purpose? Better to keep it simple. All it is is transferring photos to the device, not something you need much complexity on. But if you *do* want to do things the hard way, yes, you should probably be using Android.
On the iPad, third party apps are not allowed to delete images from the storage. Of course, this is all 'to make it easier for the user'.
Safer for the user. "Oops, our app deleted all your photos. Sorry."
This is 'news for nerds', no self-respecting nerd would defend such 'design'. You do. So, my conclusion is that you don't belong here. Try some Apple fanboy forum ;)
It's not "news for stuck-up elitist geeks", so what are you doing here? You're not the arbiter of what qualifies as a geek or nerd topic. The very notion that nerds/geeks should all have the same preferences is absurd.
Apple puts out some serious tech, and they show you where everyone else will be following a year or two later. If you don't think that's news for nerds, maybe you should just ignore the Apple stories or find a new site yourself? Also, if you find it difficult to use an iPad... well, just saying maybe you shouldn't be so quick to revoke someone's geek card, just saying.
which doesnt allow you to plug in a USB stick or anything
Yes, it does. You just need a DCIM folder. It only uses storage for photos and videos. It also supports keyboards and audio devices.
Either way, the way iOS hides any concept of a filesystem would make it rather difficult to integrate internal storage into the user interface.
This is by design. iOS is a "post PC" OS, and doing away with visible filesystems is part of this paradigm.
The ipad isnt a computer, and the OS doesnt do computer things, so it isnt the device for me anyway...
It's understandable that it's not the device for you, but you are absolutely incorrect in saying that the iPad isn't a computer and that the OS doesn't do computer things. Laughably incorrect, in fact. Not only is the iPad a computer, but it's the future of where computing is going. Don't worry, though, more traditional style computers will never go away, so you will always be able to wallow in complexity to your heart's content, but most people aren't interested in that, and Apple is going to serve them very well in the years to come.
For a hint at how powerful a thing this is, consider the original iPod, which completely hides the filesystem, unlike most other mp3 players of the time (and amazingly, some even to this very day). Plenty of geeks blew a gasket over this, and still do, preferring to manage their music as files and folders directly. Most everyone else doesn't. That's because they don't care about the *files*, they care about the *documents* (in this case, the music). The iPod isn't a computer, but the same ease of use is applicable to real computers, like the iPad.
But, like I said, your ability to buy computers which expose this will never go away, just don't expect everyone to remain stuck in the old paradigm, just like the CLI has not (and will never) go away, even though relatively few people ever use them.
Not really. There are clear technical reasons (size, power use) why netbooks don't have optical drives. There are no technical reasons why the huge iPad couldn't include a tiny cheap SDHC slot.
That's completely different. It's *why* it's not included. The fact is that netbooks don't have optical drives. The question Entropius asked is equally apt in that case.
The only reason it's not there is because it's incompatible. Incompatible with Apple's policy of squeezing out their customers.
That makes no sense. The correct answer is not enough people want it to warrant its inclusion, but enough do want it to warrant the add-on. I can't understand why this is so difficult to grasp.
If you look at the ports and button on the iPad (and iPhone and iPod) you will notice that there are as few as possible. This simplicity is part of the appeal of Apple products. People who clamor for USB ports and SD slots completely ignore this. Apple offers both USB and SD for those that want it, without burdening those that don't.
Not to worry though, I have an iPad and the camera connection kit and the iPad still sucks at doing anything with photo's...
As do I, and I have no trouble with photos on the iPad. It seems the problem lies with the operator.
That's ridiculous. An SD slot is tiny and you could easily fit 10 of them in an ipad.
You have to connect them to the case, you have to wire them up, which brings in the need for extra chips. And there's the internal volume of the connector and the space left empty for the card to be inserted. This all can add up to multiple cubic centimeters, each of which are important in such a small enclosure.
And then you claim that optional external storage makes the thing too hard to use. What the hell are you doing on Slashdot?
Are you dense? It makes it too hard for the target audience, which is "everyone" and not just the technologically adept.
It's iTunes and the lack of decent external storage that make my ipad hard to use. A great app like Goodreader needs to have its own ftp client built in to be able to retrieve PDF's from a server. It's not alone in that. Lots of apps are jumping through hoops to transfer files to or from the device. They all scream: broken by design.
It's not that it's broken, but that it's incomplete. Apple really needs to add a universal WebDAV and SMB API for apps to use, as well as a common storage pool. But if they get this wrong, it's worse than not having it at all for most users. For the more technologically adept, jumping through hoops and rough edges aren't that much of a problem.
Your post reflects very well why a certain breed of geeks tend to thumb their nose at iOS devices, and why they seem so thoroughly incapable of understanding why iOS is better for most everyone who isn't them.
Apple doesn't sell an e-reader, the Kindle isn't a tablet. Their markets overlap, but they aren't the same market.
The iPad's battery lasts quite long enough to serve as an e-reader. But yes, if you want to read for more than 10 hours in a sitting*, you might be better off with a Kindle.
* However, since you can turn down the brightness significantly in iBooks (and I think the other ebook apps), if you are reading at night you will likely get much more than 10 hours of reading time, if you want.