What about people with jobs that offer compensation for commute travel expenses or even a company car?
A telecommute can also add a few costs - when I'm at home, none of my work supplies are free. Electricity (especially for AC, if you don't have central), gas for heating, and most importantly: Good coffee (although I'd suppose not everyone spends as much on decent coffee, and you might have ended up in a workplace that only supplies junk coffee)...
If anything, this move should make you want to switch to Android even more, as it will free you (the end user) from the customizations foisted upon you by manufacturers and carriers...
Your objection is duly noted - however, your Droid is not part of the current Motorola Android lineup (it was replaced by the Droid 2), and was the only mid-high end Moto device to have a non-signed bootloader.
I dunno, that Thinkpad X220 with 12+ hours of usable (!!! http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/lenovo-thinkpad-x220.aspx?page=3, http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=6056&p=4) battery life (and that's only with the internal 9-cell battery - the strap-under slice battery adds another 10 hours or so) is looking much better to me than any tablet or smartphone I've seen so far. I have a feeling that as soon as laptops start to catch up in terms of battery life and portability, ARM based tablets and smartphones will become much less appealing. It'll come down to a choice between capacitive touchscreens vs. hardware keyboards & pointing devices, and I have a feeling that far fewer people would be willing to choose the latter if it didn't come with much, much lower battery life.
I too own a high-end Android smartphone to go along with my subnotebook, but if I could get all-day always-on battery life out of my subnotebook, I doubt I'd pull out my phone even half as often...
Making things worse, the need for anti-aliasing filters will further soften the photos.
Soften? Pastelify, blur, undetailify, and just generally fuck up are terms that much better describe what noise reduction filters in typical cell phone cameras do to pictures.:(
And why would you reply to a news feed? Nobody wants to hear what you (or I) have to say, unless the article is on a site like Slashdot - and sites like Slashdot have their own commenting system...
Yes, the apps aren't as pretty or functional as they could be if they were fully optimized for the form factor.
However, saying that only 20 apps are available for the $500-1000 device someone is about to buy is just plain untrue... You can already use what you've got, and it'll get prettier and more functional over time.
Twitter is such a shit social tool I actually started unfollowing all my friends; it's still great for following news feeds, though.
No, it's fucking not. I only use Twitter because certain Android devs think there's no other way to post news... but there's something about only reading 140 chars (or was it 150?) before having to click through to see WTF the topic of the tweet actually was that seriously pisses me off.
SMS is the root of all evil, and it's ruined a perfectly good service. A centralized alternative to RSS (which is all Twitter really is) would've been great... although tbh: Google Reader's interface kicks Twitter's ass anyway.
Gizmodo is borked in general - at least for me. I like the content, but the site is damned near unusable - keeps logging me out, switches articles when I side-scroll (WTF!!! Some people actually use the side-scroll function on their mouse for scrolling FROM SIDE TO SIDE), and auto-refreshes to new articles when I'm still reading the old ones.
FF4 with NoScript turned off for all domains listed on Giz... what a I doing wrong?
If Google and Apple are smart, they'll offer to bankroll a couple of extra lawyers for Amazon. These services are a huge additional value... precedent here we come:)
But a little OT, as I don't feel like installing Subsonic AGAIN just to test this: Does Last.FM scrobbling from Android work yet? And ReplayGain? And rating songs from the Android app?
While I do think that this kind of service is the future, and that we should be supporting it through any legal trouble in order to pave the way for more similar services to follow, this one sort of sucks - at least for music streaming.
My main basis for comparison is AudioGalaxy, which has turned into a pretty great application. You install a little helper app on your desktop/server at home and that scans your whole collection, streaming it to your phone or a web client on demand, including transcoding for the former (still to be implemented for the web client). Handles 24-bit 96kHz FLAC without any problems whatsoever:)
Positive points for Amazon Cloud Player Thingy: -No need to run your own server at home -No need for high speed upload at home
Negative points: -Only MP3 and AAC - no FLAC, no OGG, no WMA, no WAV -100MB filesize limit -No way to rate songs, AFAICT (the Android app hasn't been updated to support the cloud drive yet, so maybe this'll be added there) -No ReplayGain (to be fair, AudioGalaxy and even most other mobile players don't offer this) -No Audioscrobbler AFAICT:(
Hasn't Rogers throttled torrent traffic during peak time for a while now? You max out at 30kb/s.
Holy crap dude... I knew you North Americans had it bad when it came to ISP interference, but that's just awful. As we speak my uTorrent is hitting about 2MByte/sec (which is exactly what my DSL line is rated for - 16MBit) on the latest Simpsons and Family Guy episodes...
Are file upload sites (Rapidshare, Netload and so on) an alternative? Plain HTTP downloads, so no throttling, theoretically?
Yep... If the form factor is too small for a hardware keyboard, so be it... but I'm more than willing to sacrifice thickness and carry twice the weight if it'll get me tactile feedback:)
Have you tried Winsplit Revolution? Been using it for a while now, and it's awesome in conjunction with AllSnap.
Of course, this is with two laptops and two monitors on my desk at most times (although one of the laptops is a convertible tablet, so it doesn't really count as an additional screen.
And another few examples of where I've found that multiple monitors come in handy:
-Separate Media monitor: Dedicated to Winamp, VLC and any other programs you may use for your music and/or video needs -Separate PIM & Communication monitor: E-Mail, IM, calendaring... -Separate VM monitor - I run Ubuntu for Android stuff, and when I'm trying to look up a tutorial on how to patch and compile some module or other, the last thing I want to be doing is minimizing windows back and forth -Separate monitor for big complicated programs that like to be maximized. IDEs, DAWs (although those usually span across all my available monitors), things like Photoshop...
Slashdot Mirror
Do you think people want to live in cities? do you think they want to live in condos??? with a family?
Yes/No.
What about people with jobs that offer compensation for commute travel expenses or even a company car?
A telecommute can also add a few costs - when I'm at home, none of my work supplies are free. Electricity (especially for AC, if you don't have central), gas for heating, and most importantly: Good coffee (although I'd suppose not everyone spends as much on decent coffee, and you might have ended up in a workplace that only supplies junk coffee)...
If anything, this move should make you want to switch to Android even more, as it will free you (the end user) from the customizations foisted upon you by manufacturers and carriers...
Correct, my statement was missing a "not".
Your objection is duly noted - however, your Droid is not part of the current Motorola Android lineup (it was replaced by the Droid 2), and was the only mid-high end Moto device to have a non-signed bootloader.
RC4 rocks, btw... running it right now myself :)
It's easy - which team wants to keep Android open for you as the end user?
Which team wants to lock everything down so they can continue to charge 20 cents for 140 characters of text?
I'll take the "closed" Google version of Android, thanks :)
Unfortunately an option on any of the current Motorola lineup, and that lineup seems to be the go-to choice for regular Joes...
I dunno, that Thinkpad X220 with 12+ hours of usable (!!! http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/lenovo-thinkpad-x220.aspx?page=3, http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=6056&p=4) battery life (and that's only with the internal 9-cell battery - the strap-under slice battery adds another 10 hours or so) is looking much better to me than any tablet or smartphone I've seen so far. I have a feeling that as soon as laptops start to catch up in terms of battery life and portability, ARM based tablets and smartphones will become much less appealing. It'll come down to a choice between capacitive touchscreens vs. hardware keyboards & pointing devices, and I have a feeling that far fewer people would be willing to choose the latter if it didn't come with much, much lower battery life.
I too own a high-end Android smartphone to go along with my subnotebook, but if I could get all-day always-on battery life out of my subnotebook, I doubt I'd pull out my phone even half as often...
Even with the NDK? I doubt it, but please, prove it (or at least cite it)... :)
Making things worse, the need for anti-aliasing filters will further soften the photos.
Soften? Pastelify, blur, undetailify, and just generally fuck up are terms that much better describe what noise reduction filters in typical cell phone cameras do to pictures. :(
I want a 1.3-2MP sensor in my next phone...
Slashdot's jokes, on the other hand... let's just say I'm sticking my head in the sand until this fateful day is over. See you for the aftermath!
And why would you reply to a news feed? Nobody wants to hear what you (or I) have to say, unless the article is on a site like Slashdot - and sites like Slashdot have their own commenting system...
Yes, the apps aren't as pretty or functional as they could be if they were fully optimized for the form factor.
However, saying that only 20 apps are available for the $500-1000 device someone is about to buy is just plain untrue... You can already use what you've got, and it'll get prettier and more functional over time.
Twitter is such a shit social tool I actually started unfollowing all my friends; it's still great for following news feeds, though.
No, it's fucking not. I only use Twitter because certain Android devs think there's no other way to post news... but there's something about only reading 140 chars (or was it 150?) before having to click through to see WTF the topic of the tweet actually was that seriously pisses me off.
SMS is the root of all evil, and it's ruined a perfectly good service. A centralized alternative to RSS (which is all Twitter really is) would've been great... although tbh: Google Reader's interface kicks Twitter's ass anyway.
Why are we using this crap again?
Gizmodo is borked in general - at least for me. I like the content, but the site is damned near unusable - keeps logging me out, switches articles when I side-scroll (WTF!!! Some people actually use the side-scroll function on their mouse for scrolling FROM SIDE TO SIDE), and auto-refreshes to new articles when I'm still reading the old ones.
FF4 with NoScript turned off for all domains listed on Giz... what a I doing wrong?
Why funny? It's a good point, albeit a rather sarcastically expressed one...
If Google and Apple are smart, they'll offer to bankroll a couple of extra lawyers for Amazon. These services are a huge additional value... precedent here we come :)
Not really, that would be AudioGalaxy.
But a little OT, as I don't feel like installing Subsonic AGAIN just to test this: Does Last.FM scrobbling from Android work yet? And ReplayGain? And rating songs from the Android app?
That's... so... beautiful... *wipes away tears*.
I hope to God that you're right...
While I do think that this kind of service is the future, and that we should be supporting it through any legal trouble in order to pave the way for more similar services to follow, this one sort of sucks - at least for music streaming.
My main basis for comparison is AudioGalaxy, which has turned into a pretty great application. You install a little helper app on your desktop/server at home and that scans your whole collection, streaming it to your phone or a web client on demand, including transcoding for the former (still to be implemented for the web client). Handles 24-bit 96kHz FLAC without any problems whatsoever :)
Positive points for Amazon Cloud Player Thingy:
-No need to run your own server at home
-No need for high speed upload at home
Negative points: :(
-Only MP3 and AAC - no FLAC, no OGG, no WMA, no WAV
-100MB filesize limit
-No way to rate songs, AFAICT (the Android app hasn't been updated to support the cloud drive yet, so maybe this'll be added there)
-No ReplayGain (to be fair, AudioGalaxy and even most other mobile players don't offer this)
-No Audioscrobbler AFAICT
Hasn't Rogers throttled torrent traffic during peak time for a while now? You max out at 30kb/s.
Holy crap dude... I knew you North Americans had it bad when it came to ISP interference, but that's just awful. As we speak my uTorrent is hitting about 2MByte/sec (which is exactly what my DSL line is rated for - 16MBit) on the latest Simpsons and Family Guy episodes...
Are file upload sites (Rapidshare, Netload and so on) an alternative? Plain HTTP downloads, so no throttling, theoretically?
True, but only because Leon was so awesome. :)
Yep... If the form factor is too small for a hardware keyboard, so be it... but I'm more than willing to sacrifice thickness and carry twice the weight if it'll get me tactile feedback :)
And therefore always will, yes.
*hugs Thinkpad*
No thanks. Roll-up keyboards are already available, and they suck.
Have you tried Winsplit Revolution? Been using it for a while now, and it's awesome in conjunction with AllSnap.
Of course, this is with two laptops and two monitors on my desk at most times (although one of the laptops is a convertible tablet, so it doesn't really count as an additional screen.
And another few examples of where I've found that multiple monitors come in handy:
-Separate Media monitor: Dedicated to Winamp, VLC and any other programs you may use for your music and/or video needs
-Separate PIM & Communication monitor: E-Mail, IM, calendaring...
-Separate VM monitor - I run Ubuntu for Android stuff, and when I'm trying to look up a tutorial on how to patch and compile some module or other, the last thing I want to be doing is minimizing windows back and forth
-Separate monitor for big complicated programs that like to be maximized. IDEs, DAWs (although those usually span across all my available monitors), things like Photoshop...