No. Mac developers tend to develop for the latest OS X version only
Nonsense. But considering the source, ignorance is to be expected. I know of no software that doesn't run on Leopard (10.5) as well as Snow Leopard (10.6). I'm sure there must be some examples, but they aren't even remotely common, let alone the norm.
which is why owning a slightly old Mac is such a frustrating experience
Snow Leopard runs on every Intel Mac, which is to say every new Mac since around 2006. Leopard runs on PPC Macs even older still. Every so often there is a piece of software that is Intel-only, although that's not terribly common.
So how is this different to developing games/apps for the desktop (or, hell, laptop, tablet, netbook variants thereof), or every other phone OS other than iOS to date?
With a standard PC, you can have system requirements. Must have X cpu, Y gpu, Z ram, etc. With phones, these things are mostly hidden.
Additionally, with PCs, you have Windows or Mac OS X (or Linux[*]). You have a common set of features, and if you need some specific feature that is not standard, you include an installer (DirectX in Windows) or bundle a library. With Android, the ability for the hardware makers and cell providers to customize it have this fragmentation effect which is amplified by the developers' inabilities to realistically work around them.
[*] Linux, with its various distros, libraries and desktop environments, has a similar problem that makes it more difficult to provide compiled, proprietary software unless you target it specifically to a handful of distros.
And it would be more capable were it written in Objective-C. Do you know that it doesn't have dynamic lighting, and that that's something that's holding up flaming arrows? Unless OpenGL in Java is more capable and that Notch has mostly just coded himself into a corner.
This isn't meant as a nock against Minecraft or Notch, or even really Java specifically, just that, all told, Objective-C provides significantly more potential than Java does. What's more important to me is that the game exists and is fun rather than how it would potentially be better if different choices were made.
Um, yeah, because privacy and security are inherently mixed in with each other. One the purposes of an ssh tunnel is to protect one's privacy. Google Chrome violates one's privacy. The fact that you use the tunnel for entirely different ends doesn't change that. There's no mix up to ask why you've gone through such a security measure (using an SSH tunnel) to later give away your privacy (using Google Chrome).
As for your answer, makes sense. That's all I was wondering, as on the surface the one thing seemed to counteract the effort of the other.
Neither of those things describe the link between the computer and the printer (note in my comment where I complain that the user doesn't have a router).
Yes they do. If the computer is acting like an ad-hoc network, it can use zeroconf to set something up instead of just defaulting to broadcasting as hpsetup. Alternately, the printer can have a quick connect button that you press when the HP installer software is loading, and the software would act like the software on a router does when you press it.
iPhones are only $99 if you disregard the cost of the contract. If you do, you're an idiot.
Hmm... Let's see what I wrote, shall we?
"iPhones are $99, $199, and $299, with a two year contract."
Well, sheee-it. Did you even read the post you replied to? It's not like the two-year contract is some sort of iPhone-only thing, it applies to all smartphones. You can buy it unsubsidized for $500+ (like the Droid X, which is $570), or buy it at a lower price with a contract.
The only idiocy here is anyone who seems to think that contracts are some sort of downside for the iPhone in relation to Android.
Since you insist on being an idiot, I can only assume you work in marketing, and evidently you do:
You do realize your ass isn't a oracle, and you can't just accept everything that you pull out of it as a fact, right?
it's patently untrue that the iPhone is the best phone in the world
Correct. But they are the best smartphone in the world.
if your fingers get wet and cold, it's practically useless.
What the fuck? What did I tell you about making stuff up?
Since those drawbacks are pretty extreme, it's simply not the best phone in the world.
Those are imaginary drawbacks that don't even make any sense. It's ludicrous to claim that "wet and cold" hands are some sort of huge issue with the iPhone.
It's just more pleasant to use in a very limited number of situations.
When you're ready to quit making shit up and actually making honest points, do let me know won't you?
And yet a single phone model on a single carrier still takes a huge slice of the pie which Android has only recently (this year) managed to catch up with, and only by being offered by EVERY carrier.
Exactly. In terms of sales opportunities, Android has had a clear advantage over iPhone for well over a year now, and even with that, Android is only now reaching parity in terms of new units sold.
Currently, the only things Android has going for it over iPhone that the average consumer truly cares about are carrier choice and price. This story is about alleviating one of those things. As for price, being more expensive than some MP3 players didn't seem to harm the iPod much. Once people can truly chose between Android and iPhone, we'll see how things really stack up. The only thing that will keep Android up in this game will be pricing. Specifically, as a free phone, because even with a $50 Android vs a $99 iPhone, consumers are going to chose the iPhone. It's just that up to this point, Verizon customers were not even offered this choice.
There are more people who will ditch AT&T for Verizon than there are people who will ditch Android for iPhone
I'll take "imaginary facts pulled from my ass for $100, Alex"
for the simple fact that the U.S. isn't the whole world
That proves this how exactly?
Also, some people dislike the need for going through a goddamn 12 step program just to change the ringtone.
Are you fucking high? Settings -> Sounds -> Ringtone. How does Android do this that is so much better?
For a few things where there's money involved for Apple, the iPhone is remarkably user hostile.
That demonstrates your ignorance of Apple products. They don't design their UI's specifically around what they will directly benefit financially from. They design them around how people will use them. By making the best product they can, they sell more and make more money. Services like the iTunes stores aren't primarily sources of profit. They have them because by controlling those, they can exert more control over the quality of their products than their competitors can, leading to a more attractive product to the consumer.
That doesn't come without a cost, though. If they can't keep the quality of their offerings high, then there's the opportunity for someone else to step in and provide something better. With Apple's model, the company lives or dies based on Apple's abilities. With other products, like Android, its success is dependent on the collective actions of various and disparate companies.
Of course the number of people who break their contract in order to buy an iPhone will be low. The number of people who break their contract to buy *any* phone is low. How many people do you think broke their contract to buy a Droid?
That's an interesting point. I would wager vast sums of money that more people would break their contract for an iPhone than would for an Android phone, even though the overall numbers for both should be rather small.
The $500 is for the phone with no subsidy. Once you're under contract, you aren't eligible for the subsidy.
Droid X is $570 without a contract. Acting like the iPhone is super expensive ignores the fact that *all* smartphones are similarly expensive (without a contract) or similarly inexpensive (with one).
1) iPhones are $99, $199, and $299, with a two year contract. Android phones are sometimes free with a two year contract (and often also requiring the purchase of another phone, but there are always sales of some sort). That is not "hideously expensive". 2) True 3) They are the best in the world, but it is true they aren't to everyone's taste. They are, however, to most people's taste. 4) True, but that is more of a universal constant than something that will affect one over the other.
Been covered before. Palm and Android can talk and surf as long as you're on WiFi. Current EVDO, not so much.
That's not the same thing. That's pure apologetics. AT&T's 3G network allows you to use your data 3G connection simultaneously with your 3G voice connection. This is a feature that is not possible on the CDMA carriers, and there's nothing Palm or Android can do about this.
Talking while using WiFi is something else entirely, and is only potentially limited by hardware or software.
Oh, so many problems with this one, where to even start.
I suppose the most obvious place is the fact that your "example" didn't even come from Apple.
Second, did you miss the negative growth for August?
Third, even if sales growth hadn't gone negative, that doesn't mean the iPad isn't, in your own words, "hurting notebook sales".
Fourth, iPads do not sell just to people with Macs and iPhones and iPods.
And finally, the iPad is the most quickly adopted non-phone consumer electronics device ever. Your claim that its success is some sort of Apple fanboy aberration is rather bold, and without any facts to back it up, unlike the Morgan Stanley researcher who has actual, you know, numbers.
Maybe I just misunderstood you, and what you meant was there's an art to lying about Apple, and your example is of doing that. Now that I think about it, that does make a lot more sense. Well done!
Where is the contradiction in saying that iOS isn't simply a "cell phone OS", but is in fact primarily Mac OS X with a different UI?
If anything, iOS is a desktop OS with a touch interface, which was Altus' point, as opposed to bberens' point which was that iOS was some sort of phone OS bolted on to a tablet.
As for an MS tablet, they need to get away from the "windows everywhere" idea and come up with a completely new OS (preferably one which is posix/unix based like everyone else's) for tablets, with its own interface and applications which are specifically designed for the tablet form factor.
This is extremely difficult to do. That's why MS pushes Windows so hard, it already exists.
Beware of marketed success and the difference between units released into the retail chain versus the number of units actually sold, millions of units sitting in warehouse globally soon to be discount items do not in reality count but that's why PR=B$.
Apple doesn't play numbers bullshit like you are implying here. They've sold millions of iPads to actual users, not just manufactured or shipped to stores. The iPad is the best selling non-phone consumer electronics item of all time.
I know zero people that own an iPad and I know at least that many who have an interest in buying one.
Well, that settles it then!
The popular rage is Samsung android phones (the current bargain hotness).
I wouldn't say "popular rage". You are right about Android in general being the "current bargain hotness". I'm quite certain that the ratio of people who buy Android devices because they specifically want Android to those that buy it because of price and carrier is significantly less than 1.
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No. Mac developers tend to develop for the latest OS X version only
Nonsense. But considering the source, ignorance is to be expected. I know of no software that doesn't run on Leopard (10.5) as well as Snow Leopard (10.6). I'm sure there must be some examples, but they aren't even remotely common, let alone the norm.
which is why owning a slightly old Mac is such a frustrating experience
Snow Leopard runs on every Intel Mac, which is to say every new Mac since around 2006. Leopard runs on PPC Macs even older still. Every so often there is a piece of software that is Intel-only, although that's not terribly common.
So how is this different to developing games/apps for the desktop (or, hell, laptop, tablet, netbook variants thereof), or every other phone OS other than iOS to date?
With a standard PC, you can have system requirements. Must have X cpu, Y gpu, Z ram, etc. With phones, these things are mostly hidden.
Additionally, with PCs, you have Windows or Mac OS X (or Linux[*]). You have a common set of features, and if you need some specific feature that is not standard, you include an installer (DirectX in Windows) or bundle a library. With Android, the ability for the hardware makers and cell providers to customize it have this fragmentation effect which is amplified by the developers' inabilities to realistically work around them.
[*] Linux, with its various distros, libraries and desktop environments, has a similar problem that makes it more difficult to provide compiled, proprietary software unless you target it specifically to a handful of distros.
iOS is significantly more successful than Android, and yet does not have this problem.
And it would be more capable were it written in Objective-C. Do you know that it doesn't have dynamic lighting, and that that's something that's holding up flaming arrows? Unless OpenGL in Java is more capable and that Notch has mostly just coded himself into a corner.
This isn't meant as a nock against Minecraft or Notch, or even really Java specifically, just that, all told, Objective-C provides significantly more potential than Java does. What's more important to me is that the game exists and is fun rather than how it would potentially be better if different choices were made.
Well you're mixing privacy and security there
Um, yeah, because privacy and security are inherently mixed in with each other. One the purposes of an ssh tunnel is to protect one's privacy. Google Chrome violates one's privacy. The fact that you use the tunnel for entirely different ends doesn't change that. There's no mix up to ask why you've gone through such a security measure (using an SSH tunnel) to later give away your privacy (using Google Chrome).
As for your answer, makes sense. That's all I was wondering, as on the surface the one thing seemed to counteract the effort of the other.
None of those are what Windows Mobile 7 is trying to compete with.
Clearly, WM7 is going after the market hole left behind by Kin.
Neither of those things describe the link between the computer and the printer (note in my comment where I complain that the user doesn't have a router).
Yes they do. If the computer is acting like an ad-hoc network, it can use zeroconf to set something up instead of just defaulting to broadcasting as hpsetup. Alternately, the printer can have a quick connect button that you press when the HP installer software is loading, and the software would act like the software on a router does when you press it.
It'd be a real shame if Slashdot moved away from its original purpose of being a database of rye bread recipes...
Close. Slashdot was originally meant to replace chips & dips.
You're worried about security, but you use Chrome? Do you know it sends every web address you type in to Google, as you type it?
If they are dumb enough to setup their account whithout encryption, they deserve whatever happens to them.
No, they don't.
zeroconf and those "Quick Connect" buttons that routers and Windows have these days, for two.
iPhones are only $99 if you disregard the cost of the contract. If you do, you're an idiot.
Hmm... Let's see what I wrote, shall we?
"iPhones are $99, $199, and $299, with a two year contract."
Well, sheee-it. Did you even read the post you replied to? It's not like the two-year contract is some sort of iPhone-only thing, it applies to all smartphones. You can buy it unsubsidized for $500+ (like the Droid X, which is $570), or buy it at a lower price with a contract.
The only idiocy here is anyone who seems to think that contracts are some sort of downside for the iPhone in relation to Android.
Since you insist on being an idiot, I can only assume you work in marketing, and evidently you do:
You do realize your ass isn't a oracle, and you can't just accept everything that you pull out of it as a fact, right?
it's patently untrue that the iPhone is the best phone in the world
Correct. But they are the best smartphone in the world.
if your fingers get wet and cold, it's practically useless.
What the fuck? What did I tell you about making stuff up?
Since those drawbacks are pretty extreme, it's simply not the best phone in the world.
Those are imaginary drawbacks that don't even make any sense. It's ludicrous to claim that "wet and cold" hands are some sort of huge issue with the iPhone.
It's just more pleasant to use in a very limited number of situations.
When you're ready to quit making shit up and actually making honest points, do let me know won't you?
And yet a single phone model on a single carrier still takes a huge slice of the pie which Android has only recently (this year) managed to catch up with, and only by being offered by EVERY carrier.
Exactly. In terms of sales opportunities, Android has had a clear advantage over iPhone for well over a year now, and even with that, Android is only now reaching parity in terms of new units sold.
Currently, the only things Android has going for it over iPhone that the average consumer truly cares about are carrier choice and price. This story is about alleviating one of those things. As for price, being more expensive than some MP3 players didn't seem to harm the iPod much. Once people can truly chose between Android and iPhone, we'll see how things really stack up. The only thing that will keep Android up in this game will be pricing. Specifically, as a free phone, because even with a $50 Android vs a $99 iPhone, consumers are going to chose the iPhone. It's just that up to this point, Verizon customers were not even offered this choice.
There are more people who will ditch AT&T for Verizon than there are people who will ditch Android for iPhone
I'll take "imaginary facts pulled from my ass for $100, Alex"
for the simple fact that the U.S. isn't the whole world
That proves this how exactly?
Also, some people dislike the need for going through a goddamn 12 step program just to change the ringtone.
Are you fucking high? Settings -> Sounds -> Ringtone. How does Android do this that is so much better?
For a few things where there's money involved for Apple, the iPhone is remarkably user hostile.
That demonstrates your ignorance of Apple products. They don't design their UI's specifically around what they will directly benefit financially from. They design them around how people will use them. By making the best product they can, they sell more and make more money. Services like the iTunes stores aren't primarily sources of profit. They have them because by controlling those, they can exert more control over the quality of their products than their competitors can, leading to a more attractive product to the consumer.
That doesn't come without a cost, though. If they can't keep the quality of their offerings high, then there's the opportunity for someone else to step in and provide something better. With Apple's model, the company lives or dies based on Apple's abilities. With other products, like Android, its success is dependent on the collective actions of various and disparate companies.
Of course the number of people who break their contract in order to buy an iPhone will be low. The number of people who break their contract to buy *any* phone is low. How many people do you think broke their contract to buy a Droid?
That's an interesting point. I would wager vast sums of money that more people would break their contract for an iPhone than would for an Android phone, even though the overall numbers for both should be rather small.
The $500 is for the phone with no subsidy. Once you're under contract, you aren't eligible for the subsidy.
Droid X is $570 without a contract. Acting like the iPhone is super expensive ignores the fact that *all* smartphones are similarly expensive (without a contract) or similarly inexpensive (with one).
1) iPhones are $99, $199, and $299, with a two year contract. Android phones are sometimes free with a two year contract (and often also requiring the purchase of another phone, but there are always sales of some sort). That is not "hideously expensive".
2) True
3) They are the best in the world, but it is true they aren't to everyone's taste. They are, however, to most people's taste.
4) True, but that is more of a universal constant than something that will affect one over the other.
Been covered before. Palm and Android can talk and surf as long as you're on WiFi. Current EVDO, not so much.
That's not the same thing. That's pure apologetics. AT&T's 3G network allows you to use your data 3G connection simultaneously with your 3G voice connection. This is a feature that is not possible on the CDMA carriers, and there's nothing Palm or Android can do about this.
Talking while using WiFi is something else entirely, and is only potentially limited by hardware or software.
What I mean is all the people that wanted a true smartphone got one in the past year - they got a Droid. Few will want to pay again to get an iPhone.
Disregard my previous question to you, I now have the answer. You are insane.
Apple had their chance to completely dominate the phone market and they've blown it
Are you insane? They do dominate the phone market. And if they come out with a Verizon iPhone, that can only help continue that domination.
There of course is an art to Apple lying
Oh, so many problems with this one, where to even start.
I suppose the most obvious place is the fact that your "example" didn't even come from Apple.
Second, did you miss the negative growth for August?
Third, even if sales growth hadn't gone negative, that doesn't mean the iPad isn't, in your own words, "hurting notebook sales".
Fourth, iPads do not sell just to people with Macs and iPhones and iPods.
And finally, the iPad is the most quickly adopted non-phone consumer electronics device ever. Your claim that its success is some sort of Apple fanboy aberration is rather bold, and without any facts to back it up, unlike the Morgan Stanley researcher who has actual, you know, numbers.
Maybe I just misunderstood you, and what you meant was there's an art to lying about Apple, and your example is of doing that. Now that I think about it, that does make a lot more sense. Well done!
Where is the contradiction in saying that iOS isn't simply a "cell phone OS", but is in fact primarily Mac OS X with a different UI?
If anything, iOS is a desktop OS with a touch interface, which was Altus' point, as opposed to bberens' point which was that iOS was some sort of phone OS bolted on to a tablet.
As for an MS tablet, they need to get away from the "windows everywhere" idea and come up with a completely new OS (preferably one which is posix/unix based like everyone else's) for tablets, with its own interface and applications which are specifically designed for the tablet form factor.
This is extremely difficult to do. That's why MS pushes Windows so hard, it already exists.
Beware of marketed success and the difference between units released into the retail chain versus the number of units actually sold, millions of units sitting in warehouse globally soon to be discount items do not in reality count but that's why PR=B$.
Apple doesn't play numbers bullshit like you are implying here. They've sold millions of iPads to actual users, not just manufactured or shipped to stores. The iPad is the best selling non-phone consumer electronics item of all time.
I know zero people that own an iPad and I know at least that many who have an interest in buying one.
Well, that settles it then!
The popular rage is Samsung android phones (the current bargain hotness).
I wouldn't say "popular rage". You are right about Android in general being the "current bargain hotness". I'm quite certain that the ratio of people who buy Android devices because they specifically want Android to those that buy it because of price and carrier is significantly less than 1.
Ahh, selective memory. I seem to recall my dad having a Windows tablet PC like a decade ago. Who's "me too", again?
How many years after the demise of the Newton did your dad buy his Windows TabletPC?