That was my first thought. What about the issue with the Chinese hacking into Google due to inside information on their systems? This sort of plan just seems a bit foolish given how similar data has already been used.
I was responding to the parents topic of Patent Trolls. As to your question, IF apple decided to withhold it's touch patents is purely hypothetical. I would imagine such cases would be invested as anti-competitive as they would be using unfair market advantage.
I don't think any of the companies involved have refused outright to license their technologies, but I believe the suite from Apple claims that Nokia was demanding more money from Apple than from other vendors, which is the basis of the lawsuit.
If that is true, I would imagine that existing law would handle such situations (anticompetitive).
I wondering why they don't put a limit on the amount of time that a patent holder can sue another for infringement. Continue to allow the 20 (+) years to hold and own the patent, and collect royalties, but limit the amount of time (create a window of time) that a patent holder can sue an individual or company that is infringing. If that time passes, they would lose the option to sue for lost damages, but the infringing company woud have to purchase the rights going forward.
That would prevent situations like RIM where they had a huge ongoing business threatened by a torpedo patent. Another example is JPG patent that was tried a few years ago.
These patent trolls sit and wait until a business becomes profitable and rather large, and then torpedo them with a patent which results in something akin to blackmail if they want to keep their business.
What does Apple have to do with this? In what way is the licensing for an Apple Computer different than a Windows PC? If your talking APPLIANCES, like Game machines or phone devices, such as iPhone, the Apps offered with iPhone don't 'come with the unit'. They weren't sold with it and certainly weren't guaranteed from Apple to be allowed on the device.
In regards to Game consoles, Sony is on a limb here all by their lonesome, as Apple doesn't have a game console (although arguably the iPhone, but they haven't crippled some game that came with it), and there is no similar situation on the XBox either that I know of.
Try to keep your rants in line with the topic at hand?
Rather than allow blackmail situations, why not simply put a time limit on the length of time that they can file lawsuits for patent violations in the past? If they fail to exercise that right within a reasonable amount of time, then they loose the right to sue for damages for past infringement? Is that too simple a solution?
It would stop these submarine issues from popping up years after products have been out and used in the market.
I've never had a phone battery die before I ended up replacing the phone, across a range of phones from Nokia, Motorola, and Apple, and even an old Panasonic (I think it was a Panny..been too many ears). In addition, you can replace the battery for about $5 bucks from Amazon, and all it takes it removing two screws to expose the innards. It's not overly difficult.
Pandora has already previewed a multi-tasking version of the app for OS 4.0. It will run in the background as well as supporting the standard audio controls just like the built in iPod player currently does.
With the advent of 4.0, most of the complaints, including multi-tasking have been addressed (although I'm sure there will be more created to fill the vacuum), although it appears the battery still can't be replaced, although the battery size is more inline with the newer capacities on phones like the HTC. Even with my old 3GS my batter lasts about 3 days on standby with 3 - 3.5 hours of 'ON' usage. I just don't see the non-replaceable battery as an issue.
Given that, according to the study, they were giving away a phone (buy 1 get one free), I don't think Apple has too much to worry about just yet. I'm sure they are concerned, but this is hardly the end of the world. iPhone sells from a single carrier here in the US and for a premium price. They have always gone for higher markup items and done very well. This reminds me of the XBox and the MS tactic of selling them below cost to get market saturation.
From TFA: NPD points to a Verizon buy-one-get-one-free promotion for all of its smartphones as a major factor in the first quarter numbers. Verizon saw strong sales for the Motorola Droid and Droid Eris Android phones, as well as the Blackberry Curve, thanks to its promotional offer.
Because it is the geek version of an 'inconvenient truth". Folks on here love to bash the iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch, comparing it's 'closed' system to a general PC, which is wide open. The argument makes no sense when it is taken for what it is: An appliance.
Apple and Flash Haters in general have very real arguments against the use of flash (for the record, as to performance, if Flash improved in that arena, I wouldn't see an issue from that side of the argument. I could simply make the choice to use or not to use). It is proprietary, it encompasses an framework within itself, and it is out of Apple's control. If Apple were to allow Flash 'apps' on the iPhone, and Flash introduced a security vulnerability across such a large scope of applications (and you know there would eventually be thousands of such apps), Apple would be totally at the mercy of Adobe, who has a terrible track record when it comes to security. In such an instance, it would be Apple who suffered the scorn, not Adobe. Why would any sane person want to put themselves into that situation, when they obviously do not need to? The lack of Flash has arguably not hurt iPhone sales in any significant way.
I also found this statement from TFA a bit ridiculous: "At InfoWorld.com, we believe such lockouts of technology, however well rationalized, could eventually lead to an Internet future of multiple, incompatible platforms that demand multiple proprietary technologies."
The simple fact is, that if a technology is good, and absolutely needed, it will be placed where demanded, or the vendor refusing to will simply shrivel and die. The market ultimately makes this decision for a vendor. Standards group typically end up incorporating technologies when evolving needs require them, although they may take their time, they do eventually get there. These standards don't happen in a vacuum. Prior to HTML5 and no viable alternative to PROPRIETARY Flash, there simply wasn't much of a choice. The market demanded the features that Flash delivered. Even though it is a proprietary technology (like the one the above quote is slamming), it became hugely popular. This in itself I believe was it's biggest downfall. It had no competition within the market, and Adobe became lax with it. They had the 90+ percentile numbers of multitudes of Windows users who were lapping it with nary a choice to the contrary. 64 bit OS's have been around for years, yet we are only now seeing betas of a 64 bit plugin? Smart phones have been around for years, yet we still have no production version of the client. The geek herds should be all up in arms that Flash is so 'last century', yet they are clamoring to get it installed (well at least some are) onto their Droid's, only to complain that it crashes, kills battery life, and generally sucks. Why so surprised?
I'm actually rather shocked that Flash's downfall is so tantalizing close considering it was an almost impossible 'ball' to fumble given the unbelievable good fortune Adobe has had and squandered.
The InfoWorld article misses the point. It is for me the consumer to decide, and I believe the Apple crowd has overwhelmingly already done so, and new the new directions like HTML5's capabilities are a reflection of that (note I'm not saying Apple is responsible for HTML5 or anything of the sort, but their refusal to 'sign on' to Flash due to it's very obvious shortcomings are being answered by new standards to address those concerns).
Yet you continue to assume people buy Apple products just for the 'cool factor' when obviously they buy them because the features fit their needs. Although i'm certain there are people who buy them as a popular/fad item, those kinds of fads do fade and they move on to something else. Given that the satisfaction rate with Apple products and the % of folks who would buy again are tops in the industry, I wouldn't classify it as a 'fad' purchase.
Actually, quite a few malware infections, and pop-up storm days would just send you to random porn sites. I recall having problems if you went to a bad torrent site, you would get hit with pop-up storms that did exactly that. If they were forced into an xxx domain, you could easily block such sites.
I agree that only a 'bad' parent would resist this, but then again, there is no training required to raise children;)
You make an excellent point from the porn industry, but from a parents point of view, the.xxx domain would seem like an excellent solution.
About the only "resistance" I can think of from the 'goodly and cleanly' side is simply having to acknowledge and accept that people want to go to such sites. Probably like small town cities resist book stores, adult entertainment, liquor stores, etc. They can never seem to get enough control over other peoples lives and choices.
Actually I don't block flash because it locks up the browser. I block it because it's annoying, is typically used for ads and other irrelevant info, takes too much bandwidth, and is processor intensive. I'm also not shy about complaining to web masters who substitute Flash 'text' for actual text, and who don't offer a Text Only or some other access method that doesn't involve a proprietary plugin.
I don't know if I'm in the minority, but I wouldn't consider flash integrated into the browser a 'feature'. I would prefer to control that by installing it myself if needed.
Actually no, the majority of quests weren't "Get X and return it ot "Y". Any quests to get item 'X' were all related to the major plot points like the Horadric Cube (required to create the key to get into the Durance of Hate). None of them were optional side quests. There were no quests to kill X number of anything other than the 4 prime evils which were the entire purpose of the game. It was linear in the sense that to get to a new area, you had to destroy the 'Act' boss, but every one of the was a key plot character like Andariel, the Travincal Council, etc.
I can recall very few (read one hand) non-essential quests, and most of those were in the beginning to get you into the game and to show you the basic game mechanics to come. Each Act had a boss that had to be destroyed to proceed to the next Act, but that was the only real item you had to go back, and only due to the fact the portal to the next act would spawn in town.
I would suggest they stick more to the Blizzard style, like the methods used with Diablo, and Diablo 2. D1 was a relatively quick 16-20 hours if you trolled every square inch of the map to the end. D2 was much bigger than D1, but didn't suffer from the larger scope. There were almost no useless 'side quests' as everything was focused on the main story in some way. They did none of the 'go here and collect # of X and return to Y'. There have been very few games that I've finished over the last 10 years due to either a weak/no story line, or the game trying to be to open-ended, or simply because they sucked. They focus so much on creating huge environments, that it gets more than a little tedious to go through it all. By the time you've hit a quater of it, you pretty much have nothing left to discover except for some new scenery.
That said, I've run across a few exceptions. Half Life 2 (great story line). I've played it a few times through. I also recently started playing Dragon Age (Bioware). It's got a pretty hefty amount of those side quests, but they tend to resolve themselves without you doing much to work for them. I don't mind them accepting them and if they get solved great, and if not, no worries). The map layouts tend to allow you to resolve them just as part of your normal progression through the map and I've noticed that many tend to showcase certain uses for skills that you might not have considered (haven't cracked the manual). On the plus side, it allows a fairly free story line, with your choice of what order you want to solve the major plot points, and what side you want to be on, so they get points for that as well. They also ditched the huge world map environments that I was used to seeing in Sacred, and trips between them are without all the tedious 'hiking'. When you get to specific 'areas', the maps expand to a much larger sub-areas that are again broken down by more sub-areas that aren't shown unless you opt, or are forced to go there.
That is another important part to my way of thinking. If they try too hard to be 'free and open' as far as story line, you end up lost as to what to do or where to go next because the game provides no direction other than 'talk to blahblah' and that typically prompts a "Who the hell is 'blahblah and why can't I find him/her?". Dragon Age fortunately has a strong enough story line that even paying a minimal amount of attention will get you there and they clearly mark the target of a particular question on the map, although they don't show you how to get there.
Haven't finished this one yet, although it's been good enough for me to stop 3/4ths of the way through and create a new character out of curiosity and that's saying a lot. About my only major complaint is that it tries almost too hard for a story line, and ends up being a little heavy on dialogue. Fortunately you can just skip it with the escape key.
I have to wonder if a lot of these studios every play the entire finished product from start to finish. I suspect if they had a little more perspective of the entire game, we wouldn't see such a high failure rate in regards to games not being finished. I suspect they play their little component areas or specific parts of the project and think it's great, but rolled into the rest of it, they dont' realize just how tedious, boring, repetitive, or how difficult the entire game can get.
I think a good place to start with these 'Unlimited' 5 GB plans is to ban the use of the word 'Unlimited' when a typical user could easily hit the 5 GB limit. As far as I know, only AT&T offers an 'unlimited' plan, and that is only on the iPhone/iPad. I found one or two that claim true unlimited plans and then go on to say that those who abuse their connections may be throttle.Their 3G Wireless plans are just like everyone else regarding the 5 GB limit, although I don't recall if they label their 'unlimited' as well.
You can't buy the iPhone unlimited data plan from AT&T unless you have one of those Apple devices. Sprint/Verizon/T-Mobile all call their plans 'Unlimited' with a 5 GB limit.
I suspect if they couldn't advertise them as 'Unlimited', it would bring more general awareness of just how crappy their plan offerings are in the year 2010.
Microsoft themselves have admitted that they weren't very standards driven in regards to IE6:
"While it is true that our implementation is not fully, 100 percent W3C-compliant, our development investments are driven by our customer requirements and not necessarily by standards," said Greg Sullivan, a lead product manager with the Windows client group.
Yes, but had MS stuck to standards to begin with, you would have been able to just design your pages per the standard, and never had to worry about any browser. Even now, my company is just getting around to piloting IE8, and only because the inevitable rollout to Windows 7. I suspect a lot are in the same boat, where they skipped Vista, and made no effort to stay current with the browser that came packaged with XP. I don't know why my company chose to just stay on IE6 but I suspect it worked at the time, it was updated from MS so they got their security fixes in a standard way along with the other OS patches, and it was simply conveniant.
My company is usually very keen on get current stay current, but they failed miserably on IE. I can only assume that they design apps specifically for IE6 and simply couldn't break away, or didn't see any need to move on. Now that the move to Windows 7 comes bundled with IE8, they simply have no choice.
Actually it doesn't revert completely. It restores it to the latest OS version you've downloaded, but with factory settings. It doesn't revert it to the original OS version. Once you sync it for the first time, it will push your apps, and songs back, or you optionally have the ability to restore from your last backup as well.
I suspect Apple will simply incorporate those features into iTunes at some point. They have already moved to make iTunes available via the web. That said, I would be blind to not acknowledge that it's possible this was to prevent direct competition with Lala if/when iTunes adapts similar features.
I am curious about the summary and the indication that MP3 format from Lala was somehow better than the AAC audio from iTunes though. Neither is encrypted, and the potential quality is much better with AAC. You would be hard pressed to find music devices that only support MP3 these days.
Assuming Apple allowed flash onto the iPhone, and users happily started consuming sites like YouTube, and http://www.jimcarrey.com/ and Hulu.com
Who do you think would look bad when the battery life took a severe nose dive? Who would be the first to slam Apple (aside from./)
What happens when a security hole in Flash infects millions of iPhones, and there isn't a damn thing Apple could do about it, who do you think would end up looking bad in 'Joe Users' eyes?
It is not only about open standards. There are a slew of reasons Flash sucks and a slew of reasons it's now allowed on the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad.
It's hardly that difficult. Restoring your iPhone to factory is as easy as clicking a button, and any support forum will typically tell someone that first thing before suggesting they just take it to an Apple store. The restore is actually pretty painless.
It's also a bit disingenuous to compare something like an iPAd with WebTV. WebTV was painful and for good reason. Browsing the web is an intimate exercise. It is typically not a group action, and watching someone type is about as exciting as watching paint peel. Doing both in a room with the TV 10 feet away was just not very useful. I think there is a definite need for an iPad in certain sectors, or folks wouldn't have been trying various iterations of such for the last decade or two and failing. I think it was simply an idea that didn't have a realization, or the technology to back it up and make it 'useable'. I think the iPad accomplishes that.
Although I'm perfectly fine with a smart phone, and a laptop or desktop, some folks may want something in between, or they may not have a choice of both, and the iPad is a perfect answer for them.
I believe the point is, that if you can unlock it, so can the folks who write all the malware. Locked down for everyone makes that much less likely. I equate this to enabling remote access to a server. Although I may know how to use it, so will a hacker, and that will be a primary vector that they will try when attempting to exploit it.
The very fact that we're discussing why Flash isn't already on these mobile devices is a good indicator of why Jobs hates flash. Adobe has gotten extremely lax when it comes to innovation, security, and keeping current with technology, all due to the fact that they had no competition in the Flash arena. Now that HTML5 is a serious threat (and it is a serious threat when sites like Youtube, Facebook, Hulu, etc. are all talking about supporting h.264 streaming instead of Flash), we're suddenly seeing them actively trying to get hardware acceleration working, reducing CPU requirements, optimizing even for the Mac platform, if only a few years after h.264 was out. Better late than never...
The simple fact is, that they should have had better performing versions out ont he market when Smart Phones took off a few years ago. Flash isn't optimized for Mobile, and it's not optimized for touch interfaces. Hell, you could even say it's not optimized for any current OS and you wouldn't be far wrong. Any time a site takes up more CPU than that required to run an entire VM in virtual mode is pretty sad.
Adobe didn't have to work for device support for years or lack of a captive 'flash audience', and now they do if they want to stay relevant.
Love Apple, or hate them, but I think their push for open standards and HTML5 and their refusal to allow Flash onto their mobile hardware was just the kick in the ass that Adobe needed. That said, I hope they die a quick painful death in the flash arena. Flash is still an abomination.
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That was my first thought. What about the issue with the Chinese hacking into Google due to inside information on their systems? This sort of plan just seems a bit foolish given how similar data has already been used.
I was responding to the parents topic of Patent Trolls. As to your question, IF apple decided to withhold it's touch patents is purely hypothetical. I would imagine such cases would be invested as anti-competitive as they would be using unfair market advantage.
I don't think any of the companies involved have refused outright to license their technologies, but I believe the suite from Apple claims that Nokia was demanding more money from Apple than from other vendors, which is the basis of the lawsuit.
If that is true, I would imagine that existing law would handle such situations (anticompetitive).
I wondering why they don't put a limit on the amount of time that a patent holder can sue another for infringement. Continue to allow the 20 (+) years to hold and own the patent, and collect royalties, but limit the amount of time (create a window of time) that a patent holder can sue an individual or company that is infringing. If that time passes, they would lose the option to sue for lost damages, but the infringing company woud have to purchase the rights going forward.
That would prevent situations like RIM where they had a huge ongoing business threatened by a torpedo patent. Another example is JPG patent that was tried a few years ago.
These patent trolls sit and wait until a business becomes profitable and rather large, and then torpedo them with a patent which results in something akin to blackmail if they want to keep their business.
So perhaps a stipulation that they cannot force a business to interrupt operations based on a patent that has passed it's 'grace period' for claims?
What does Apple have to do with this? In what way is the licensing for an Apple Computer different than a Windows PC? If your talking APPLIANCES, like Game machines or phone devices, such as iPhone, the Apps offered with iPhone don't 'come with the unit'. They weren't sold with it and certainly weren't guaranteed from Apple to be allowed on the device.
In regards to Game consoles, Sony is on a limb here all by their lonesome, as Apple doesn't have a game console (although arguably the iPhone, but they haven't crippled some game that came with it), and there is no similar situation on the XBox either that I know of.
Try to keep your rants in line with the topic at hand?
Rather than allow blackmail situations, why not simply put a time limit on the length of time that they can file lawsuits for patent violations in the past? If they fail to exercise that right within a reasonable amount of time, then they loose the right to sue for damages for past infringement? Is that too simple a solution?
It would stop these submarine issues from popping up years after products have been out and used in the market.
I've never had a phone battery die before I ended up replacing the phone, across a range of phones from Nokia, Motorola, and Apple, and even an old Panasonic (I think it was a Panny..been too many ears). In addition, you can replace the battery for about $5 bucks from Amazon, and all it takes it removing two screws to expose the innards. It's not overly difficult.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlkKQoUlOQg
Pandora has already previewed a multi-tasking version of the app for OS 4.0. It will run in the background as well as supporting the standard audio controls just like the built in iPod player currently does.
With the advent of 4.0, most of the complaints, including multi-tasking have been addressed (although I'm sure there will be more created to fill the vacuum), although it appears the battery still can't be replaced, although the battery size is more inline with the newer capacities on phones like the HTC. Even with my old 3GS my batter lasts about 3 days on standby with 3 - 3.5 hours of 'ON' usage. I just don't see the non-replaceable battery as an issue.
Given that, according to the study, they were giving away a phone (buy 1 get one free), I don't think Apple has too much to worry about just yet. I'm sure they are concerned, but this is hardly the end of the world. iPhone sells from a single carrier here in the US and for a premium price. They have always gone for higher markup items and done very well. This reminds me of the XBox and the MS tactic of selling them below cost to get market saturation.
From TFA: NPD points to a Verizon buy-one-get-one-free promotion for all of its smartphones as a major factor in the first quarter numbers. Verizon saw strong sales for the Motorola Droid and Droid Eris Android phones, as well as the Blackberry Curve, thanks to its promotional offer.
Because it is the geek version of an 'inconvenient truth". Folks on here love to bash the iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch, comparing it's 'closed' system to a general PC, which is wide open. The argument makes no sense when it is taken for what it is: An appliance.
Apple and Flash Haters in general have very real arguments against the use of flash (for the record, as to performance, if Flash improved in that arena, I wouldn't see an issue from that side of the argument. I could simply make the choice to use or not to use). It is proprietary, it encompasses an framework within itself, and it is out of Apple's control. If Apple were to allow Flash 'apps' on the iPhone, and Flash introduced a security vulnerability across such a large scope of applications (and you know there would eventually be thousands of such apps), Apple would be totally at the mercy of Adobe, who has a terrible track record when it comes to security. In such an instance, it would be Apple who suffered the scorn, not Adobe. Why would any sane person want to put themselves into that situation, when they obviously do not need to? The lack of Flash has arguably not hurt iPhone sales in any significant way.
I also found this statement from TFA a bit ridiculous: "At InfoWorld.com, we believe such lockouts of technology, however well rationalized, could eventually lead to an Internet future of multiple, incompatible platforms that demand multiple proprietary technologies."
The simple fact is, that if a technology is good, and absolutely needed, it will be placed where demanded, or the vendor refusing to will simply shrivel and die. The market ultimately makes this decision for a vendor. Standards group typically end up incorporating technologies when evolving needs require them, although they may take their time, they do eventually get there. These standards don't happen in a vacuum. Prior to HTML5 and no viable alternative to PROPRIETARY Flash, there simply wasn't much of a choice. The market demanded the features that Flash delivered. Even though it is a proprietary technology (like the one the above quote is slamming), it became hugely popular. This in itself I believe was it's biggest downfall. It had no competition within the market, and Adobe became lax with it. They had the 90+ percentile numbers of multitudes of Windows users who were lapping it with nary a choice to the contrary. 64 bit OS's have been around for years, yet we are only now seeing betas of a 64 bit plugin? Smart phones have been around for years, yet we still have no production version of the client. The geek herds should be all up in arms that Flash is so 'last century', yet they are clamoring to get it installed (well at least some are) onto their Droid's, only to complain that it crashes, kills battery life, and generally sucks. Why so surprised?
I'm actually rather shocked that Flash's downfall is so tantalizing close considering it was an almost impossible 'ball' to fumble given the unbelievable good fortune Adobe has had and squandered.
The InfoWorld article misses the point. It is for me the consumer to decide, and I believe the Apple crowd has overwhelmingly already done so, and new the new directions like HTML5's capabilities are a reflection of that (note I'm not saying Apple is responsible for HTML5 or anything of the sort, but their refusal to 'sign on' to Flash due to it's very obvious shortcomings are being answered by new standards to address those concerns).
Yet you continue to assume people buy Apple products just for the 'cool factor' when obviously they buy them because the features fit their needs. Although i'm certain there are people who buy them as a popular/fad item, those kinds of fads do fade and they move on to something else. Given that the satisfaction rate with Apple products and the % of folks who would buy again are tops in the industry, I wouldn't classify it as a 'fad' purchase.
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/Apple-Again-Tops-HP-Dell-in-Customer-Satisfaction-377579/
Actually, quite a few malware infections, and pop-up storm days would just send you to random porn sites. I recall having problems if you went to a bad torrent site, you would get hit with pop-up storms that did exactly that. If they were forced into an xxx domain, you could easily block such sites.
I agree that only a 'bad' parent would resist this, but then again, there is no training required to raise children ;)
You make an excellent point from the porn industry, but from a parents point of view, the .xxx domain would seem like an excellent solution.
About the only "resistance" I can think of from the 'goodly and cleanly' side is simply having to acknowledge and accept that people want to go to such sites. Probably like small town cities resist book stores, adult entertainment, liquor stores, etc. They can never seem to get enough control over other peoples lives and choices.
Actually I don't block flash because it locks up the browser. I block it because it's annoying, is typically used for ads and other irrelevant info, takes too much bandwidth, and is processor intensive. I'm also not shy about complaining to web masters who substitute Flash 'text' for actual text, and who don't offer a Text Only or some other access method that doesn't involve a proprietary plugin.
I don't know if I'm in the minority, but I wouldn't consider flash integrated into the browser a 'feature'. I would prefer to control that by installing it myself if needed.
Actually no, the majority of quests weren't "Get X and return it ot "Y". Any quests to get item 'X' were all related to the major plot points like the Horadric Cube (required to create the key to get into the Durance of Hate). None of them were optional side quests. There were no quests to kill X number of anything other than the 4 prime evils which were the entire purpose of the game. It was linear in the sense that to get to a new area, you had to destroy the 'Act' boss, but every one of the was a key plot character like Andariel, the Travincal Council, etc.
I can recall very few (read one hand) non-essential quests, and most of those were in the beginning to get you into the game and to show you the basic game mechanics to come. Each Act had a boss that had to be destroyed to proceed to the next Act, but that was the only real item you had to go back, and only due to the fact the portal to the next act would spawn in town.
I would suggest they stick more to the Blizzard style, like the methods used with Diablo, and Diablo 2. D1 was a relatively quick 16-20 hours if you trolled every square inch of the map to the end. D2 was much bigger than D1, but didn't suffer from the larger scope. There were almost no useless 'side quests' as everything was focused on the main story in some way. They did none of the 'go here and collect # of X and return to Y'. There have been very few games that I've finished over the last 10 years due to either a weak/no story line, or the game trying to be to open-ended, or simply because they sucked. They focus so much on creating huge environments, that it gets more than a little tedious to go through it all. By the time you've hit a quater of it, you pretty much have nothing left to discover except for some new scenery.
That said, I've run across a few exceptions. Half Life 2 (great story line). I've played it a few times through. I also recently started playing Dragon Age (Bioware). It's got a pretty hefty amount of those side quests, but they tend to resolve themselves without you doing much to work for them. I don't mind them accepting them and if they get solved great, and if not, no worries). The map layouts tend to allow you to resolve them just as part of your normal progression through the map and I've noticed that many tend to showcase certain uses for skills that you might not have considered (haven't cracked the manual). On the plus side, it allows a fairly free story line, with your choice of what order you want to solve the major plot points, and what side you want to be on, so they get points for that as well. They also ditched the huge world map environments that I was used to seeing in Sacred, and trips between them are without all the tedious 'hiking'. When you get to specific 'areas', the maps expand to a much larger sub-areas that are again broken down by more sub-areas that aren't shown unless you opt, or are forced to go there.
That is another important part to my way of thinking. If they try too hard to be 'free and open' as far as story line, you end up lost as to what to do or where to go next because the game provides no direction other than 'talk to blahblah' and that typically prompts a "Who the hell is 'blahblah and why can't I find him/her?". Dragon Age fortunately has a strong enough story line that even paying a minimal amount of attention will get you there and they clearly mark the target of a particular question on the map, although they don't show you how to get there.
Haven't finished this one yet, although it's been good enough for me to stop 3/4ths of the way through and create a new character out of curiosity and that's saying a lot. About my only major complaint is that it tries almost too hard for a story line, and ends up being a little heavy on dialogue. Fortunately you can just skip it with the escape key.
I have to wonder if a lot of these studios every play the entire finished product from start to finish. I suspect if they had a little more perspective of the entire game, we wouldn't see such a high failure rate in regards to games not being finished. I suspect they play their little component areas or specific parts of the project and think it's great, but rolled into the rest of it, they dont' realize just how tedious, boring, repetitive, or how difficult the entire game can get.
I think a good place to start with these 'Unlimited' 5 GB plans is to ban the use of the word 'Unlimited' when a typical user could easily hit the 5 GB limit. As far as I know, only AT&T offers an 'unlimited' plan, and that is only on the iPhone/iPad. I found one or two that claim true unlimited plans and then go on to say that those who abuse their connections may be throttle.Their 3G Wireless plans are just like everyone else regarding the 5 GB limit, although I don't recall if they label their 'unlimited' as well.
You can't buy the iPhone unlimited data plan from AT&T unless you have one of those Apple devices. Sprint/Verizon/T-Mobile all call their plans 'Unlimited' with a 5 GB limit.
I suspect if they couldn't advertise them as 'Unlimited', it would bring more general awareness of just how crappy their plan offerings are in the year 2010.
Microsoft themselves have admitted that they weren't very standards driven in regards to IE6:
"While it is true that our implementation is not fully, 100 percent W3C-compliant, our development investments are driven by our customer requirements and not necessarily by standards," said Greg Sullivan, a lead product manager with the Windows client group.
It doesn't get much clearer than that...
REF: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1032-5088642.html
Yes, but had MS stuck to standards to begin with, you would have been able to just design your pages per the standard, and never had to worry about any browser. Even now, my company is just getting around to piloting IE8, and only because the inevitable rollout to Windows 7. I suspect a lot are in the same boat, where they skipped Vista, and made no effort to stay current with the browser that came packaged with XP. I don't know why my company chose to just stay on IE6 but I suspect it worked at the time, it was updated from MS so they got their security fixes in a standard way along with the other OS patches, and it was simply conveniant.
My company is usually very keen on get current stay current, but they failed miserably on IE. I can only assume that they design apps specifically for IE6 and simply couldn't break away, or didn't see any need to move on. Now that the move to Windows 7 comes bundled with IE8, they simply have no choice.
Actually it doesn't revert completely. It restores it to the latest OS version you've downloaded, but with factory settings. It doesn't revert it to the original OS version. Once you sync it for the first time, it will push your apps, and songs back, or you optionally have the ability to restore from your last backup as well.
I suspect Apple will simply incorporate those features into iTunes at some point. They have already moved to make iTunes available via the web. That said, I would be blind to not acknowledge that it's possible this was to prevent direct competition with Lala if/when iTunes adapts similar features.
I am curious about the summary and the indication that MP3 format from Lala was somehow better than the AAC audio from iTunes though. Neither is encrypted, and the potential quality is much better with AAC. You would be hard pressed to find music devices that only support MP3 these days.
Assuming Apple allowed flash onto the iPhone, and users happily started consuming sites like YouTube, and http://www.jimcarrey.com/ and Hulu.com
Who do you think would look bad when the battery life took a severe nose dive? Who would be the first to slam Apple (aside from ./)
What happens when a security hole in Flash infects millions of iPhones, and there isn't a damn thing Apple could do about it, who do you think would end up looking bad in 'Joe Users' eyes?
It is not only about open standards. There are a slew of reasons Flash sucks and a slew of reasons it's now allowed on the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad.
It's hardly that difficult. Restoring your iPhone to factory is as easy as clicking a button, and any support forum will typically tell someone that first thing before suggesting they just take it to an Apple store. The restore is actually pretty painless.
It's also a bit disingenuous to compare something like an iPAd with WebTV. WebTV was painful and for good reason. Browsing the web is an intimate exercise. It is typically not a group action, and watching someone type is about as exciting as watching paint peel. Doing both in a room with the TV 10 feet away was just not very useful. I think there is a definite need for an iPad in certain sectors, or folks wouldn't have been trying various iterations of such for the last decade or two and failing. I think it was simply an idea that didn't have a realization, or the technology to back it up and make it 'useable'. I think the iPad accomplishes that.
Although I'm perfectly fine with a smart phone, and a laptop or desktop, some folks may want something in between, or they may not have a choice of both, and the iPad is a perfect answer for them.
I believe the point is, that if you can unlock it, so can the folks who write all the malware. Locked down for everyone makes that much less likely. I equate this to enabling remote access to a server. Although I may know how to use it, so will a hacker, and that will be a primary vector that they will try when attempting to exploit it.
The very fact that we're discussing why Flash isn't already on these mobile devices is a good indicator of why Jobs hates flash. Adobe has gotten extremely lax when it comes to innovation, security, and keeping current with technology, all due to the fact that they had no competition in the Flash arena. Now that HTML5 is a serious threat (and it is a serious threat when sites like Youtube, Facebook, Hulu, etc. are all talking about supporting h.264 streaming instead of Flash), we're suddenly seeing them actively trying to get hardware acceleration working, reducing CPU requirements, optimizing even for the Mac platform, if only a few years after h.264 was out. Better late than never...
The simple fact is, that they should have had better performing versions out ont he market when Smart Phones took off a few years ago. Flash isn't optimized for Mobile, and it's not optimized for touch interfaces. Hell, you could even say it's not optimized for any current OS and you wouldn't be far wrong. Any time a site takes up more CPU than that required to run an entire VM in virtual mode is pretty sad.
Adobe didn't have to work for device support for years or lack of a captive 'flash audience', and now they do if they want to stay relevant.
Love Apple, or hate them, but I think their push for open standards and HTML5 and their refusal to allow Flash onto their mobile hardware was just the kick in the ass that Adobe needed. That said, I hope they die a quick painful death in the flash arena. Flash is still an abomination.