We saw this already in the US when Apple Pay was first launched. It looks like a last ditch effort by that Aussie banking cartel to prevent Apple from giving the consumer a fast, safe & convenient customer experience WITHOUT handing over personal data for tracking purposes. Not only did customers switch banks for Apple Pay they also stopped shopping at retailers who boycotted it. It took a year before those who opposed it crumbled. I predict the same in Australia. The consumer has all the real power here and voting with your wallet is still very effective.
This isn't about Apple. This is about data collection on consumers. I only wish Apple would use their cash war chest to lobby more to get the necessary legislation to protect public privacy.
AAPL is, as I type, down by $0.28 Someone commented above Nerds are crappy at marketing analysis. Well yes and also crappy at understanding the stock market. Back in the day, when I worked at Cisco (in the 90's), I'd often get asked by my fellow engineers "why has the stock gone down when we beat expectations this quarter?" Because you buy on the rumour and sell on the facts. The market had anticipated a good quarter and had adjusted prior to the results today. Now that those results have been confirmed there's the sell off and profiting on that safe bet So this fool ain't so foolish I think.
I started with iOS Apps and recently ported to Android. The review system is startlingly different.
- iOS rating of an App is per country. Android are global and lumped together. I prefer this.
- iOS has 2 ratings. Current version rating and all time rating. I hate this as it's actually stifling innovation on the App Store. Why? Because the keyword search rankings are affected by current version rating. So if you submit a new version of your App it resets to zero and your App falls in ranking as do install numbers. What you end up with is a top 10 (no one ever looks beyond there) of complacent Apps that haven't had an update in a couple of years.
- Android reviews can be "liked" or marked as "Unhelpful, Inappropriate, Spam" by other users. This seems to affect what reviews appear at the top of the list, it's not strictly chronological. This I like a lot. I'd like to see reviews up rated or down rated by other reviewers too lazy to write their own but happy to back up others. This way a developer can see interest level in a requested new feature. Talking to non-techie Android using friends I discovered none of them even knew they could do this with reviews. So it could be improve a lot. Hiding the "Unhelpful, Inappropriate, Spam" under the vertical ellipsis button doesn't help. Yes, Play's App review system is superior. It could be better. I'm hoping Apple's doing a lot more than just allowing feedback from developers which doesn't really help us dealing with "you're are a-hole for not giving me the god damn app 100% free with no f-ing Ads" kind of reviews which too often makes me feel like an ant being tortured by a child with a magnifying glass on a sunny day. Last month I responded to those reviews with "Happy holidays, hope you have a wonderful 2017". What else can you say?
I enjoyed Flight with Denzel Washington and this story reminds me a little of the plot. If you haven't seen it then it's an eye opener about the game of "passing the buck", and seeing who get's sued when blame is attributed. A nice big fat rich company like Apple, tasty...
"That's not all though, because on the rear window, Corning slipped an electronically controlled opacity film between the layers of glass. With the push of a button, the window went from crystal clear to a dark tint. That'll surely come in hand if you feel the sudden need for privacy."
In other news: OPEC cuts oil output for first time in 8 years and oil prices rise. Don't forget that the reason people use diesel cars is that they are significantly more fuel efficient that petrol cars.
Diesel cars have been getting a real bashing over the last year or so. (e.g. VW emissions scandal) I have question; why, now, has diesel become the fuel of the devil for the ordinary man? This article effectively says "Diesel good only for commercial vehicles, bad for consumer vehicles". Bull. Shit.
It's like the other BS propaganda campaign currently being waged against sugar. Sugar is the source of all 1st world poor health according to the media. Sugar is "bad" for 2 reasons. 1) It's natural, tastes better and costs more than artificial sweeteners. 2) It can only be grown in certain climates/countries. e.g. Brazil. The "BRIC" countries are currently under economic attack unless you haven't noticed. Brazil was doing really well up until recently. It's economy is helped significantly by sugar. "He's gone off topic, this isn't about diesel", your probably thinking about now. No, Brazil uses sugar to make alcohol which you can buy and pump into your car at it's gas stations. It's a fossil fuel replacement...
I had been writing Apps for iOS exclusively up until last September when I ported one of my Apps to Android to test the water there. My Android App is identical to the iOS one with some Android native UI differences. You can use the App (iOS or Android) with interstitial Ads or pay to remove them and get full functionality. I get more installs of the Android App (10->30% more) but, at most, only 1/5 of the revenue from in-app upgrades to full version. I also get some really awful reviews, on Google Play, from a minority who think everything should be free (including Ad free). I enjoyed working with Java and writing the App even though Google's documentation is woefully out of date. It's so easy to do updates which appear live on Play within hours of being compiled. However I need to make a living and it just doesn't pay. Bottom line. This week my sales, on iOS, have been phenomenal. Android has flat lined. Even declined. That was my first and last Android App. For now...
No, not sarcasm. I really mean it. Well done Nintendo. $10 is chicken feed. Seriously. As an independent App developer I often feel like a sweat shop worker. Or a ant being tortured by a child with a magnifying glass. You write an App, that people really like and want, but the shit you have to put up with because you don't give it away for FREE is soul destroying. I've tried offering two options, pay for full function or use with interstitial Ads. The 1 star ratings keep coming in with comments like "Remove those annoying Ads and I'll give you 5 stars". Oh thanks. I can feed myself and family on your generous 5 star rating?
The App eco-system is probably the most under valued product market place in modern society. People think nothing of chucking 99c at a street busker or homeless beggar but balk at the thought of handing over a penny for an App they really want.
Nintendo could have been more underhanded, like some other games who can afford big names and tv adverts, but they chose instead to offer a freemium product with a single purchase option and not try to milk you for millions. The game might suck, but their business ethics and mentality are sound. No doubt their strategy going forward is to offer discount days and other price promotions to increase the conversion ratio. You can only do that though from starting with a premium price.
Thank you Nintendo for not going to the lowest price point and perpetuating what has become an industry trend that's slowly suffocating itself to death.
iPhone 7 & Air Pods (ie W1 chip) already support BT5 (in hardware anyway). Today they just ratified the standard and set it in stone (which allows the hardware to get a software update on todays spec). Perhaps this is why the Air Pods were delayed until now.
I grew up on a farm, after 20 years of city life I've returned to farm living. I'm a meat eater, I milk my own cow, got egg laying hens, grow most of my own food etc. That's just to frame what I'm about to say which might sound like I'm a vegan.
If you've actually looked at the state of the creatures you are either eating, or consuming by products from, you'll see some real misery. It's horrible. As a kid we had battery hens and mass produced eggs in addition to cattle for beef/milk. Not something I'm proud of.
There's no scientific basis for what I'm about to suggest, flame away, but I'd rather eat of/from something that had a happy life than something that lived a short miserable existence. Why? "You are what you eat". I'd like to see research to see if there's a correlation between quality of life of our "food", and the mood and well being of the consumer. It's just a suggestion, I make no claims that it eating "happy food", makes you happy.
Now given the state of mainstream farming today, and how industrialised it's become already, the thought of it becoming even more cold, automated and processed without any human compassion or thought involved is enough to make me consider to the tofu.
I recently wrote an App for a company that's building AI models of organic and non-organic substances. The App works over bluetooth with a pocket sized, battery powered, NIR spectrum analyser made by Texas Instruments. TI DLP® NIRscan Nano
This technology will be the next big thing on smart phones which are crying out for something new to revitalise the market. Pick a time frame. I'd go for 5->7 years from now that right next to the camera on all smart phones we'll see an NIR scanner.
Imagine being able to scan anything and get a report of it's contents and make up? Fake, or out of date pharmaceuticals, will be a thing of the past. Nut allergy? Scan the meal you've just be served before eating it. Consumer products like Aloe Vera Gel not containing Aloe Vera? Your phone can tell you that it's a fraud. The list of applications is endless.
Here's a demo video of the App identifying real and fake viagra pills.
Now that Tesla's fucked all Elon's got left is his Mars project. If you'd asked me last week if I'd go to Mars I'd have said "no way". Where do I sign up?
You don't. If you watch the video (click on the "here" link at the end of the summary) he makes it clear that he's comparing time to get to an end result.
Not hardware. The complete package. Hardware + software.
Sure you could boot the MBP in Windows and do a like for like but that's not what any (sane) person would do right? If you want a Windows or Linux machine you aren't going to pay for software you won't use and discard, right? With the MBP you are paying for not just raw hardware but the software too.
People do actually still pay for software, it's how software engineers get paid and eat. Either you pay up front (Apple) or you pay with adverts (Google/Facebook/etc) or by giving up your personal data (Google).
Sorry if I'm a bit tetchy, as a software engineer I do get tired of people expecting me to work as hard as they do but for free.
Oh my, I did touch a nerve with my comparison didn't I?:)
Some more info on me. I'm white, Scottish and my mother comes from the same Hebridean Island as DJ's "mom" comes from. I've lived, and worked, in the SF Bay for a number of years. I've only been to New Delhi once, regrettably. Could not settled in the US due to the element of US society that today is supporting Trump. Shame, beautiful country and I made some great friends there too.
There's a smell in the air and it's not coming from Delhi. I'm feeling some what satisfied now that I've upset some of his home supporters. I just hope he disappears by Friday. He's not a unique and private problem to the people of the USA, he's an international problem and a threat to humanity.
I used to marvel at the brown smog that hung over Californian cities like the SF Bay and LA. You can only really see it from afar. Then I landed in New Delhi.... New Delhi is so bad you can't see down the length of a short street for the brown fog that seems to permanently hang over the place. I got a bit of a sore throat too. Would I go back to New Delhi? In a heart beat. Lovely people, the Indians, food was superb and I had a few good nights out there. The best thing about New Delhi is that it's an hour or two in a coach bus to Agra and the Taj Mahal as well as many other beautiful historical buildings. I'd sooner spend a long weekend in New Delhi than the SF Bay or LA (you won't run into any DJT supporters in ND either)
When Cisco closed down their European R&D centres in Edinburgh & Reading, Brocade came in and picked up the redundant developers. Cisco has lost interest in R&D and has positioned itself as a solutions provider following much the same evolution as IBM. Buying back what they threw away just doesn't make sense given their lack of interest in selling boxes.
I know all this because I setup Cisco's R&D in Edinburgh when Shiva Networks closed down their acquisition Spider Systems. My friends working at Brocade are, understandably, very concerned about this acquisition. They are part of a core group of highly experienced (25+ years) network equipment developers who have never changed jobs other than when they've been acquired or laid off. (Spider->Shiva->Cisco->Brocade) There's little chance another Brocade will come and save them a 4th time as the network industry has matured to a point where routers and switches are now commodities and if anyone is still developing them they aren't in the UK.
I was tempted to try a smart watch just to satisfy my techie curiosity, I'm still tempted to get one. I don't need one, I'd just like to have one to play with and perhaps even dabble in writing an applet or two. Saw this post and thought I'd go check the 2nd hand market for an Apple Sport 42mm. Surprisingly I find that there's very little to be saved in purchasing a year old smart watch. I'd have expected them to be going for 1/2 to 75% of their original price. Not so it seems. So either I'm looking too soon or they really are holding their value well. Is the 2nd hand market a better bellwether for smart watch uptake I wonder? Perhaps the Apple fans rushing to own one caused a mini bubble in the market which has now corrected itself?
Is it just me or does Sony seem to have some sort of obsession with "size'? Remembering the previous PS incarnations they've always been about the most pixels and power. You'd have thought they'd learned their lesson back when Nintendo trumped them with a less powerful console, introducing Wii motion, focusing instead on user experience and not just eye candy and processor power. It's just a shame Nintendo didn't do it again yesterday.
Thanks for the tip off. I've been thinking about it most of today, mostly wondering why Apple didn't do the same as the "BreakSafe" from Griffin. I suspect it's down to Apple's design drive for simplicity. Here on/. we're all technically adept but we often don't see things the way non-technical users do. You only have to look through the comments on here to see a lot of negativity towards Apple. Most of this comes from frustrations over the lack of "customisation" and perceived nannying. What I think we techies forget is that Apple doesn't care about us, they have always focused on the non-technical consumers. The ordinary users who couldn't care less about the difference between USB3 and USB-C. Going back to the BreakSafe solution; it's probably too complicated for enough people to take their new mac into an Apple store complaining they can plug anything into it because there's no port. Only for the staff to pull out the Breaksafe end stuck in the Mac and say "you plug your memory stick in here Sir":-/ Remember the story about the support call from the guy claiming the coffee holder broke off his new deck top computer? Turns out the "coffee holder" was the CD drive.
That would not be good. I've tripped over my power cable far too many times and been grateful for having Magsafe. I had hoped Apple would find a way of continuing MagSafe with USB-C even though they didn't with the MacBook. The only way I can envisage Apple keeping MagSafe with USB-C is to re-located it to the power brick end of the cable. Feels like a big step backwards if they don't do something to retain one of the best psychical features of Mac laptops.
That would not be good. I've tripped over my power cable far too many times and been grateful for having Magsafe. I had hoped Apple would find a way of continuing MagSafe with USB-C even though they didn't with the MacBook. Feels like a big step backwards.
Insightful from Carmack. There's been a history of failed attempts in technology to "game change" focusing on the single human sense of vision. More recently it was 3D TV's and movie theatres which, in hindsight, enjoyed what Carmack describes as "coasting on novelty". The 3D movies I paid a premium to watch were cool for the first 5 minutes and then I forgot I was watching 3D as my focus shifted to the content. A short lived novelty and not cheap. Content is king. Going further back I think it's fascinating that everyone assumed that video phone calls would be the future (see "Bladerunner"). Yet here we are in the 21st century using text messaging as primary. Preference for communication is the reverse of what everyone assumed. 1.Text messaging, 2.Voice call, 3.Video call Keeping this in mind, while watching Zuckerberg playing with his new toy on his Facebook videos, I can't help but wonder if he's going to be very disappointed in the end at the uptake numbers.
Slashdot Mirror
We saw this already in the US when Apple Pay was first launched.
It looks like a last ditch effort by that Aussie banking cartel to prevent Apple from giving the consumer a fast, safe & convenient customer experience WITHOUT handing over personal data for tracking purposes.
Not only did customers switch banks for Apple Pay they also stopped shopping at retailers who boycotted it.
It took a year before those who opposed it crumbled. I predict the same in Australia.
The consumer has all the real power here and voting with your wallet is still very effective.
This isn't about Apple. This is about data collection on consumers.
I only wish Apple would use their cash war chest to lobby more to get the necessary legislation to protect public privacy.
AAPL is, as I type, down by $0.28
Someone commented above Nerds are crappy at marketing analysis.
Well yes and also crappy at understanding the stock market.
Back in the day, when I worked at Cisco (in the 90's), I'd often get asked by my fellow engineers "why has the stock gone down when we beat expectations this quarter?"
Because you buy on the rumour and sell on the facts.
The market had anticipated a good quarter and had adjusted prior to the results today.
Now that those results have been confirmed there's the sell off and profiting on that safe bet
So this fool ain't so foolish I think.
I started with iOS Apps and recently ported to Android. The review system is startlingly different.
- iOS rating of an App is per country. Android are global and lumped together. I prefer this.
- iOS has 2 ratings. Current version rating and all time rating. I hate this as it's actually stifling innovation on the App Store. Why? Because the keyword search rankings are affected by current version rating. So if you submit a new version of your App it resets to zero and your App falls in ranking as do install numbers. What you end up with is a top 10 (no one ever looks beyond there) of complacent Apps that haven't had an update in a couple of years.
- Android reviews can be "liked" or marked as "Unhelpful, Inappropriate, Spam" by other users. This seems to affect what reviews appear at the top of the list, it's not strictly chronological. This I like a lot. I'd like to see reviews up rated or down rated by other reviewers too lazy to write their own but happy to back up others. This way a developer can see interest level in a requested new feature. Talking to non-techie Android using friends I discovered none of them even knew they could do this with reviews. So it could be improve a lot. Hiding the "Unhelpful, Inappropriate, Spam" under the vertical ellipsis button doesn't help.
Yes, Play's App review system is superior. It could be better.
I'm hoping Apple's doing a lot more than just allowing feedback from developers which doesn't really help us dealing with "you're are a-hole for not giving me the god damn app 100% free with no f-ing Ads" kind of reviews which too often makes me feel like an ant being tortured by a child with a magnifying glass on a sunny day. Last month I responded to those reviews with "Happy holidays, hope you have a wonderful 2017". What else can you say?
I enjoyed Flight with Denzel Washington and this story reminds me a little of the plot.
If you haven't seen it then it's an eye opener about the game of "passing the buck", and seeing who get's sued when blame is attributed.
A nice big fat rich company like Apple, tasty...
"That's not all though, because on the rear window, Corning slipped an electronically controlled opacity film between the layers of glass. With the push of a button, the window went from crystal clear to a dark tint. That'll surely come in hand if you feel the sudden need for privacy."
In other news: OPEC cuts oil output for first time in 8 years and oil prices rise.
Don't forget that the reason people use diesel cars is that they are significantly more fuel efficient that petrol cars.
Diesel cars have been getting a real bashing over the last year or so. (e.g. VW emissions scandal)
I have question; why, now, has diesel become the fuel of the devil for the ordinary man?
This article effectively says "Diesel good only for commercial vehicles, bad for consumer vehicles".
Bull. Shit.
It's like the other BS propaganda campaign currently being waged against sugar.
Sugar is the source of all 1st world poor health according to the media.
Sugar is "bad" for 2 reasons.
1) It's natural, tastes better and costs more than artificial sweeteners.
2) It can only be grown in certain climates/countries. e.g. Brazil.
The "BRIC" countries are currently under economic attack unless you haven't noticed.
Brazil was doing really well up until recently. It's economy is helped significantly by sugar.
"He's gone off topic, this isn't about diesel", your probably thinking about now.
No, Brazil uses sugar to make alcohol which you can buy and pump into your car at it's gas stations.
It's a fossil fuel replacement...
I had been writing Apps for iOS exclusively up until last September when I ported one of my Apps to Android to test the water there.
My Android App is identical to the iOS one with some Android native UI differences.
You can use the App (iOS or Android) with interstitial Ads or pay to remove them and get full functionality.
I get more installs of the Android App (10->30% more) but, at most, only 1/5 of the revenue from in-app upgrades to full version.
I also get some really awful reviews, on Google Play, from a minority who think everything should be free (including Ad free).
I enjoyed working with Java and writing the App even though Google's documentation is woefully out of date.
It's so easy to do updates which appear live on Play within hours of being compiled.
However I need to make a living and it just doesn't pay. Bottom line.
This week my sales, on iOS, have been phenomenal. Android has flat lined. Even declined.
That was my first and last Android App. For now...
So we live in an age where the only acceptable stories that can be reported in the media are negative ones?
No, not sarcasm. I really mean it. Well done Nintendo. $10 is chicken feed. Seriously.
As an independent App developer I often feel like a sweat shop worker. Or a ant being tortured by a child with a magnifying glass.
You write an App, that people really like and want, but the shit you have to put up with because you don't give it away for FREE is soul destroying.
I've tried offering two options, pay for full function or use with interstitial Ads.
The 1 star ratings keep coming in with comments like "Remove those annoying Ads and I'll give you 5 stars".
Oh thanks. I can feed myself and family on your generous 5 star rating?
The App eco-system is probably the most under valued product market place in modern society.
People think nothing of chucking 99c at a street busker or homeless beggar but balk at the thought of handing over a penny for an App they really want.
Nintendo could have been more underhanded, like some other games who can afford big names and tv adverts, but they chose instead to offer a freemium product with a single purchase option and not try to milk you for millions.
The game might suck, but their business ethics and mentality are sound.
No doubt their strategy going forward is to offer discount days and other price promotions to increase the conversion ratio.
You can only do that though from starting with a premium price.
Thank you Nintendo for not going to the lowest price point and perpetuating what has become an industry trend that's slowly suffocating itself to death.
iPhone 7 & Air Pods (ie W1 chip) already support BT5 (in hardware anyway).
Today they just ratified the standard and set it in stone (which allows the hardware to get a software update on todays spec).
Perhaps this is why the Air Pods were delayed until now.
Their new system reminds me of the unbelievable year we've had.
African corruption is as common as weeds.
A shake down by someone looking for a new yacht for Xmas.
I grew up on a farm, after 20 years of city life I've returned to farm living. I'm a meat eater, I milk my own cow, got egg laying hens, grow most of my own food etc.
That's just to frame what I'm about to say which might sound like I'm a vegan.
If you've actually looked at the state of the creatures you are either eating, or consuming by products from, you'll see some real misery.
It's horrible. As a kid we had battery hens and mass produced eggs in addition to cattle for beef/milk. Not something I'm proud of.
There's no scientific basis for what I'm about to suggest, flame away, but I'd rather eat of/from something that had a happy life than something that lived a short miserable existence.
Why? "You are what you eat".
I'd like to see research to see if there's a correlation between quality of life of our "food", and the mood and well being of the consumer.
It's just a suggestion, I make no claims that it eating "happy food", makes you happy.
Now given the state of mainstream farming today, and how industrialised it's become already, the thought of it becoming even more cold, automated and processed without any human compassion or thought involved is enough to make me consider to the tofu.
I recently wrote an App for a company that's building AI models of organic and non-organic substances.
The App works over bluetooth with a pocket sized, battery powered, NIR spectrum analyser made by Texas Instruments.
TI DLP® NIRscan Nano
This technology will be the next big thing on smart phones which are crying out for something new to revitalise the market.
Pick a time frame. I'd go for 5->7 years from now that right next to the camera on all smart phones we'll see an NIR scanner.
Imagine being able to scan anything and get a report of it's contents and make up?
Fake, or out of date pharmaceuticals, will be a thing of the past.
Nut allergy? Scan the meal you've just be served before eating it.
Consumer products like Aloe Vera Gel not containing Aloe Vera? Your phone can tell you that it's a fraud.
The list of applications is endless.
Here's a demo video of the App identifying real and fake viagra pills.
Tricorder Trekkies? :)
Now that Tesla's fucked all Elon's got left is his Mars project.
If you'd asked me last week if I'd go to Mars I'd have said "no way".
Where do I sign up?
You don't. If you watch the video (click on the "here" link at the end of the summary) he makes it clear that he's comparing time to get to an end result.
Not hardware. The complete package. Hardware + software.
Sure you could boot the MBP in Windows and do a like for like but that's not what any (sane) person would do right?
If you want a Windows or Linux machine you aren't going to pay for software you won't use and discard, right?
With the MBP you are paying for not just raw hardware but the software too.
People do actually still pay for software, it's how software engineers get paid and eat.
Either you pay up front (Apple) or you pay with adverts (Google/Facebook/etc) or by giving up your personal data (Google).
Sorry if I'm a bit tetchy, as a software engineer I do get tired of people expecting me to work as hard as they do but for free.
Your welcome! :)
Oh my, I did touch a nerve with my comparison didn't I? :)
Some more info on me. I'm white, Scottish and my mother comes from the same Hebridean Island as DJ's "mom" comes from.
I've lived, and worked, in the SF Bay for a number of years. I've only been to New Delhi once, regrettably.
Could not settled in the US due to the element of US society that today is supporting Trump.
Shame, beautiful country and I made some great friends there too.
"Disgusting", is how Trump describes the living conditions of people in Scotland who won't sell up to him to make way for his golf course.
One of them is 92 year old "Molly", who had the water to her home cut off by Trump 4 years ago
There's a smell in the air and it's not coming from Delhi.
I'm feeling some what satisfied now that I've upset some of his home supporters. I just hope he disappears by Friday.
He's not a unique and private problem to the people of the USA, he's an international problem and a threat to humanity.
I used to marvel at the brown smog that hung over Californian cities like the SF Bay and LA. You can only really see it from afar. Then I landed in New Delhi....
New Delhi is so bad you can't see down the length of a short street for the brown fog that seems to permanently hang over the place.
I got a bit of a sore throat too.
Would I go back to New Delhi?
In a heart beat. Lovely people, the Indians, food was superb and I had a few good nights out there.
The best thing about New Delhi is that it's an hour or two in a coach bus to Agra and the Taj Mahal as well as many other beautiful historical buildings.
I'd sooner spend a long weekend in New Delhi than the SF Bay or LA (you won't run into any DJT supporters in ND either)
When Cisco closed down their European R&D centres in Edinburgh & Reading, Brocade came in and picked up the redundant developers.
Cisco has lost interest in R&D and has positioned itself as a solutions provider following much the same evolution as IBM.
Buying back what they threw away just doesn't make sense given their lack of interest in selling boxes.
I know all this because I setup Cisco's R&D in Edinburgh when Shiva Networks closed down their acquisition Spider Systems.
My friends working at Brocade are, understandably, very concerned about this acquisition.
They are part of a core group of highly experienced (25+ years) network equipment developers who have never changed jobs other than when they've been acquired or laid off. (Spider->Shiva->Cisco->Brocade)
There's little chance another Brocade will come and save them a 4th time as the network industry has matured to a point where routers and switches are now commodities and if anyone is still developing them they aren't in the UK.
I was tempted to try a smart watch just to satisfy my techie curiosity, I'm still tempted to get one.
I don't need one, I'd just like to have one to play with and perhaps even dabble in writing an applet or two.
Saw this post and thought I'd go check the 2nd hand market for an Apple Sport 42mm.
Surprisingly I find that there's very little to be saved in purchasing a year old smart watch.
I'd have expected them to be going for 1/2 to 75% of their original price. Not so it seems.
So either I'm looking too soon or they really are holding their value well.
Is the 2nd hand market a better bellwether for smart watch uptake I wonder?
Perhaps the Apple fans rushing to own one caused a mini bubble in the market which has now corrected itself?
Is it just me or does Sony seem to have some sort of obsession with "size'?
Remembering the previous PS incarnations they've always been about the most pixels and power.
You'd have thought they'd learned their lesson back when Nintendo trumped them with a less powerful console, introducing Wii motion, focusing instead on user experience and not just eye candy and processor power.
It's just a shame Nintendo didn't do it again yesterday.
Thanks for the tip off. I've been thinking about it most of today, mostly wondering why Apple didn't do the same as the "BreakSafe" from Griffin. /. we're all technically adept but we often don't see things the way non-technical users do. :-/
I suspect it's down to Apple's design drive for simplicity.
Here on
You only have to look through the comments on here to see a lot of negativity towards Apple.
Most of this comes from frustrations over the lack of "customisation" and perceived nannying.
What I think we techies forget is that Apple doesn't care about us, they have always focused on the non-technical consumers.
The ordinary users who couldn't care less about the difference between USB3 and USB-C.
Going back to the BreakSafe solution; it's probably too complicated for enough people to take their new mac into an Apple store complaining they can plug anything into it because there's no port.
Only for the staff to pull out the Breaksafe end stuck in the Mac and say "you plug your memory stick in here Sir"
Remember the story about the support call from the guy claiming the coffee holder broke off his new deck top computer?
Turns out the "coffee holder" was the CD drive.
That would not be good. I've tripped over my power cable far too many times and been grateful for having Magsafe.
I had hoped Apple would find a way of continuing MagSafe with USB-C even though they didn't with the MacBook.
The only way I can envisage Apple keeping MagSafe with USB-C is to re-located it to the power brick end of the cable.
Feels like a big step backwards if they don't do something to retain one of the best psychical features of Mac laptops.
That would not be good. I've tripped over my power cable far too many times and been grateful for having Magsafe.
I had hoped Apple would find a way of continuing MagSafe with USB-C even though they didn't with the MacBook.
Feels like a big step backwards.
Insightful from Carmack. There's been a history of failed attempts in technology to "game change" focusing on the single human sense of vision.
More recently it was 3D TV's and movie theatres which, in hindsight, enjoyed what Carmack describes as "coasting on novelty".
The 3D movies I paid a premium to watch were cool for the first 5 minutes and then I forgot I was watching 3D as my focus shifted to the content.
A short lived novelty and not cheap. Content is king.
Going further back I think it's fascinating that everyone assumed that video phone calls would be the future (see "Bladerunner").
Yet here we are in the 21st century using text messaging as primary.
Preference for communication is the reverse of what everyone assumed. 1.Text messaging, 2.Voice call, 3.Video call
Keeping this in mind, while watching Zuckerberg playing with his new toy on his Facebook videos, I can't help but wonder if he's going to be very disappointed in the end at the uptake numbers.