But I bought one and I like it a lot. I want to write Python while I'm on aeroplanes. It's lighter and smaller than my X220 and has a much better screen. All its quirks and faults are to me, unimportant, and yes, the airline I fly has power sockets so that isn't an issue either.
Anyone who wants to see how far we've come in aircraft safety should read Ernest K Gann's autobiographical account of the early days of commercial flight. Each chapter begins with a long list of dead pilots. The bottom line is that until the NTSB issue a report detailing the causes of these incidents then no-one in the public domain has a f#cking clue what is going on and everything you read in the press is garbage. Aircraft are very complex systems and they are tested beyond reason before they are even allowed to be flown on test flights. The traditional tests cover the obvious limit and ultimate structural loads, fatigue and damage tolerance, system life and endurance. All factored for worst case statistical scatter of all properties. For the/. audience, software follows DO178B the testing of software can take years, I've seen it even on simple add-on systems.
The fact that these batteries are failing shows that something very, very strange is happening and there is no way that any corporation or government could sweep it under the carpet.
Touch is NOT necessarily the primary input. I'm running W8 on my X220 with just a mouse and trackpad. Sure, some of the Metro stuff would be a little bit more convenient with a touchscreen but all of the gestures are easily achieved with either the mouse or the trackpad. I found myself confused at work briefly on my XP box when I couldn't fast switch between applications by mousing into the top left corner.
There is an issue with syncing Google accounts WPCentral , which seems to be more an issue of Google changing their API rather than a bug as such with the phones.
From my own experience with an HTC 8X I had to reset the phone and reinstall apps (no biggy) I set Gmail to forward to Hotmail and copied over all the contacts and since then it has run flawlessly. Battery life with light use is up to three days
I remain to be convined that the Windows phone OS is dead. MSFT still has massive market presence and has a good chance of bulldozing Win 8 and all its siblings through to some sort of success. The big differentiator over previous MSFT moblile OSs is that it isn't rubbish. I have an HTC 8X and despite the very valid concerns over the app availability, the device itself is slick and gorgeous.
I suspect that HTC's strong involvement with MSFT did have a bearing on Apple settling with them; not because they think they're going to die but because they are taking themselves out of the frontline of Jobs' jihad
Each manufacturer has its own walled garden on the MSFT app store. This gives some differentiation between otherwise identical software. In the case of Nokia their exclusive apps are the turn by turn satnav app 'Drive', the public transport app 'Transport' and the AR app 'City Lens' (amongst several other less notable offerings). Any one of these would be a reason to go for Nokia over HTC, Samsung or even MSFT and this is the reason I am putting up with their stupid decision to go exclusive with EE and waiting until the new year to get a 920 off-contract.
It may in the TFA (tl:dr) or the same data also reported elsewhere but these figures are only for smartphones. If you include 'feature phones' then Nokia still sold more than World+dog. 76 million I think was the number. Plus you have to include the fact that NOBODY is buying Nokia smartphones at the moment because the entire (niche) market is waiting for Monday to buy 820s and 920s. Nokia's Q4 will look a lot more positive. HTC, although it has put some effort into quite a nice design for the 8X and 8S is still predominantly an Android company and there may be some people holding out for their Winphones but their Android phones should be selling regardless. The trend for HTC seems to be inescapably downwards but Nokia might just pull it off.
I had an HTC Legend a while back. Beautiful little device, but as many have pointed out: No upgrades to the OS
I don't think it's true to say that web apps didn't catch on, but the better ones are simulacra of native apps like the MS office web apps or Apple iCloud/iWork apps. You can use them if you have to but you sure as hell fire up a native app if it's available instead.
Now if ChromeOS could run IE6, then all those hideous web apps used in company intranets would work and they'd have a product!
As for the other stuff, sandboxing comes with a price, but surely the security and stability improvement is worth it? I don't even play games let alone develop them so you'll have to explain why I would need IPC (You get basic IPC to the MS built-in apps I think) and plugins and scripting are just one means to an end aren't they? You don't need to use them?
All that said, I'd quite like one of these Surface thingies, but I'll wait for the i5 one because I want to be able to run Python on it on the train.
RT is what MS want Windows to become. The desktop is legacy and at some point it will be dropped (admitedly, likely to be many years in the future). Dropping legacy support is one of Apple's strengths so why shouldn't MS try the same approach? Sure, on Oct 26th the RT tablets are going to be a bit of a dissapointment, but that will change. RT is a powerful framework:
"...And in the same vein of blowing past peoples' expectations, virtually no app could not be written as a WinRT app. Many are imagining very simple, HTML-like apps, and while I'm sure there will be plenty of those, you need to reset your expectations up. WinRT is amazingly full-featured and not constrained to goofy utilities and simple games. The next "Call of Duty" could be a WinRT app, complete with support for Edge UIs and Charms..."
Really? How is this possibly useful? So I can't use this thing to work on trains or planes, just on my home wifi, on the 3G portable hotspot I would need to buy (so long as I'm in a city) or at Starbucks? I would get better value from a pen a calculator and 40 pads of quad-ruled A4...
Something else that I never see on Slashdot is an understanding of the concept of fashion. Every slashdotter knows exactly why and when they would want to use a Mac or a PC running Linux, Windows, BSD whatever. He (/she) would pick the right tool for the job based on a technical understanding of what he needed to accomplish. But we are in a minority, dear friends!
My job involves a lot of air travel. In the airport lounge all I see these days are shiny corporate types, or tastefully scruffy creative types with MacBooks and iPads. Not a single one of them has a clue why this is a good idea (other than a hazy concept of 'fewer viruses'), they just want them because they look cool and expensive. The point about fashion is that it inevitably changes; as soon as a few of these Surfaces show up, the suits and artists will think they are cooler than iPads and will buy them in droves.
Microsoft have understood that there are a great many people who just want to have the 'best' thing. Apple's computers are far more beautiful than any PC out there and the iPad likewise amongst tablets. What Microsoft have done is to create a beautiful piece of hardware that stands comparison with the iPad and that is all they needed to do.
Yep, get him into Python, he should be able to pick that up quickly enough to keep him interested but it will also offer him challenges for years if he wants it. Or... at the risk of being downmodded (again) for not being a MS/Nokia hater, you could get him a cheap WP7 phone (plenty around right now with WP8 coming) and take a look at the amazing TouchDevelop scripting environment that lets you write anything from one-liners to quite complex apps right on the school bus, mostly without having to actually write anything - you connect up various blocks and pipes to get results. https://www.touchdevelop.com/
...molecular weight is only 1/4 of Helium...
There, fixed that for you.
And before we all reach for our tinfoil hats, here's why he didn't use hydrogen: http://www.airships.net/hindenburg/disaster/myths
Just to show I do occasionally RTFA...
"...the speed of sound — approximately 690 meters per second..."
Not unless the air up there is 911 deg C it aint.
Slashdot Mirror
But I bought one and I like it a lot. I want to write Python while I'm on aeroplanes. It's lighter and smaller than my X220 and has a much better screen. All its quirks and faults are to me, unimportant, and yes, the airline I fly has power sockets so that isn't an issue either.
Wrong: "A Windows user will see 97.5 GB in File Explorer"
Right on his doorstep, Windows Phone has double digits already
The fact that these batteries are failing shows that something very, very strange is happening and there is no way that any corporation or government could sweep it under the carpet.
Touch is NOT necessarily the primary input. I'm running W8 on my X220 with just a mouse and trackpad. Sure, some of the Metro stuff would be a little bit more convenient with a touchscreen but all of the gestures are easily achieved with either the mouse or the trackpad. I found myself confused at work briefly on my XP box when I couldn't fast switch between applications by mousing into the top left corner.
There is an issue with syncing Google accounts WPCentral , which seems to be more an issue of Google changing their API rather than a bug as such with the phones.
From my own experience with an HTC 8X I had to reset the phone and reinstall apps (no biggy) I set Gmail to forward to Hotmail and copied over all the contacts and since then it has run flawlessly. Battery life with light use is up to three days
I remain to be convined that the Windows phone OS is dead. MSFT still has massive market presence and has a good chance of bulldozing Win 8 and all its siblings through to some sort of success. The big differentiator over previous MSFT moblile OSs is that it isn't rubbish. I have an HTC 8X and despite the very valid concerns over the app availability, the device itself is slick and gorgeous.
I suspect that HTC's strong involvement with MSFT did have a bearing on Apple settling with them; not because they think they're going to die but because they are taking themselves out of the frontline of Jobs' jihad
Each manufacturer has its own walled garden on the MSFT app store. This gives some differentiation between otherwise identical software. In the case of Nokia their exclusive apps are the turn by turn satnav app 'Drive', the public transport app 'Transport' and the AR app 'City Lens' (amongst several other less notable offerings). Any one of these would be a reason to go for Nokia over HTC, Samsung or even MSFT and this is the reason I am putting up with their stupid decision to go exclusive with EE and waiting until the new year to get a 920 off-contract.
So how does that make Nokia the bad guy?
Includes: "...One year of Windows Phone Developer Center membership. A $99 (USD) retail value..." It says here
So this makes Nokia a rip-off merchant how exactly? MSFT maybe but they're only charging the going rate
My ZX80 didn't have a hard drive. It had 1KB of RAM and a crappy cable to connect to an even crappier cassette deck!
Now ALL of you get the heck off MY lawn
Windows Phone 8 uses the NT kernel, Windows Phone 7 uses the Win CE kernel.
My brother did a bit of hacking to put Debian on a Psion. I was pretty proud of him at the time!
Debian on Psion
No mod points today, otherwise I'd have +1 Insightfulled you...
It may in the TFA (tl:dr) or the same data also reported elsewhere but these figures are only for smartphones. If you include 'feature phones' then Nokia still sold more than World+dog. 76 million I think was the number. Plus you have to include the fact that NOBODY is buying Nokia smartphones at the moment because the entire (niche) market is waiting for Monday to buy 820s and 920s. Nokia's Q4 will look a lot more positive. HTC, although it has put some effort into quite a nice design for the 8X and 8S is still predominantly an Android company and there may be some people holding out for their Winphones but their Android phones should be selling regardless. The trend for HTC seems to be inescapably downwards but Nokia might just pull it off.
I had an HTC Legend a while back. Beautiful little device, but as many have pointed out: No upgrades to the OS
I don't think it's true to say that web apps didn't catch on, but the better ones are simulacra of native apps like the MS office web apps or Apple iCloud/iWork apps. You can use them if you have to but you sure as hell fire up a native app if it's available instead.
Now if ChromeOS could run IE6, then all those hideous web apps used in company intranets would work and they'd have a product!
There are apps for Dropbox and Google Search on Windows Phone.
MS want a nice fat revenue stream just like Apple's. Who wouldn't?
Yeah, the 15 rating thing is stupid but that's lawyer crap and nothing to do with the tech. Maybe it'll change in future? Who knows :-(
Game development for RT isn't impossible though (it says here...):
http://blogs.nvidia.com/2012/08/nvidia-brings-unreal-engine-3-to-windows-8-and-windows-rt/
As for the other stuff, sandboxing comes with a price, but surely the security and stability improvement is worth it? I don't even play games let alone develop them so you'll have to explain why I would need IPC (You get basic IPC to the MS built-in apps I think) and plugins and scripting are just one means to an end aren't they? You don't need to use them?
All that said, I'd quite like one of these Surface thingies, but I'll wait for the i5 one because I want to be able to run Python on it on the train.
RT is what MS want Windows to become. The desktop is legacy and at some point it will be dropped (admitedly, likely to be many years in the future). Dropping legacy support is one of Apple's strengths so why shouldn't MS try the same approach? Sure, on Oct 26th the RT tablets are going to be a bit of a dissapointment, but that will change. RT is a powerful framework:
From http://www.winsupersite.com/blog/supersite-blog-39/windows8/winrt-replacing-win32-140605
"...And in the same vein of blowing past peoples' expectations, virtually no app could not be written as a WinRT app. Many are imagining very simple, HTML-like apps, and while I'm sure there will be plenty of those, you need to reset your expectations up. WinRT is amazingly full-featured and not constrained to goofy utilities and simple games. The next "Call of Duty" could be a WinRT app, complete with support for Edge UIs and Charms..."
It is the x86 tablets that are the stop-gap
Really? How is this possibly useful? So I can't use this thing to work on trains or planes, just on my home wifi, on the 3G portable hotspot I would need to buy (so long as I'm in a city) or at Starbucks? I would get better value from a pen a calculator and 40 pads of quad-ruled A4...
Something else that I never see on Slashdot is an understanding of the concept of fashion. Every slashdotter knows exactly why and when they would want to use a Mac or a PC running Linux, Windows, BSD whatever. He (/she) would pick the right tool for the job based on a technical understanding of what he needed to accomplish. But we are in a minority, dear friends!
My job involves a lot of air travel. In the airport lounge all I see these days are shiny corporate types, or tastefully scruffy creative types with MacBooks and iPads. Not a single one of them has a clue why this is a good idea (other than a hazy concept of 'fewer viruses'), they just want them because they look cool and expensive. The point about fashion is that it inevitably changes; as soon as a few of these Surfaces show up, the suits and artists will think they are cooler than iPads and will buy them in droves.
Microsoft have understood that there are a great many people who just want to have the 'best' thing. Apple's computers are far more beautiful than any PC out there and the iPad likewise amongst tablets. What Microsoft have done is to create a beautiful piece of hardware that stands comparison with the iPad and that is all they needed to do.
Yep, get him into Python, he should be able to pick that up quickly enough to keep him interested but it will also offer him challenges for years if he wants it. Or... at the risk of being downmodded (again) for not being a MS/Nokia hater, you could get him a cheap WP7 phone (plenty around right now with WP8 coming) and take a look at the amazing TouchDevelop scripting environment that lets you write anything from one-liners to quite complex apps right on the school bus, mostly without having to actually write anything - you connect up various blocks and pipes to get results. https://www.touchdevelop.com/
Oops. My bad...
...molecular weight is only 1/4 of Helium... There, fixed that for you. And before we all reach for our tinfoil hats, here's why he didn't use hydrogen: http://www.airships.net/hindenburg/disaster/myths
Just to show I do occasionally RTFA... "...the speed of sound — approximately 690 meters per second..." Not unless the air up there is 911 deg C it aint.