I have a Lumia 800. All of the people who have seen it have said the same two things: "Wow!" and "I never even knew there was a Windows phone"
The quality of the product, both hard and software is there and will only improve with the new WP8 models. Take a look at the 920 specs.
Everyone will know about Windows 8 in the next few weeks and WP8 will hitch a marketing ride on its coat tails.
I don't understand "Ex-Nokia exec Tommi Ahonen's" problem with wanting to destroy his former employer. Maybe it's just to drive traffic to his blog?
For me his best was "Oath of Fealty"
Although he is one of my favourite authors, and who couldn't but love Nessus the Puppeteer? generally his books rely on exceptionally well thought-out and executed physical realities but peopled by two-dimensional characters.
Check out the story "Wait it Out" in the anthology "Tales of Known Space" to see what I mean: the most amazing concept but really quite poorly written.
I think Asher carries on the ideas of Banks and Reynolds, with a complex and self-consistent universe setting. Not really 'hard sf' in that he relies on 'U-space' (a kind of hyperspace) to enable the whole concept of the 'Polity' civilization to exist but he definitely adds his own twist. Like the Culture, the Polity is utopian in nature, but the controlling computer (AI) minds are more believable than Banks' in that they run the show based on calculations of most good to most people/entities so the decisions taken can often result in a lot of deaths and destruction. The level of violence is cranked up to eleven. The last one I read had prisoners of a drug gang being digested by eels to make a particularly strong narcotic and then the leader of the gang being eaten by a lizard in the denouement... His characterisations are usually quite good too.
If you like Banks he's worth a try. Start with the Ian Cormac series.
True, and in order to keep flying the entire airframe and engines would have been required to demonstrate compliance to near-current certification standards, which means many hundreds of expensive and time-consuming tests, with no guarantee of success, consequent redesigns and retrofits. All in all it would be cheaper to design a new plane from scratch, but still too expensive even for the current luxury market. Else, why aren't the skies full of them?
Utter f*cking rubbish. I just installed W8 preview alongside Ubuntu 12.04 (yes, a sweet combination, Ithankyou). Of course the Winstaller doesn't nicely search out the other OSs but it was a couple of clicks on a bootable Ubuntu CD to fix this.
Concord(e) was an astonishing piece of engineering; it could achieve military jet performance with passenger transport reliability. Yes, it was horribly fuel inefficient by today's standards but it was designed in the 1960s. That is: fifty years ago! It was simply uneconomic in the end and in fact it was the requirement for the demonstration of continued airworthiness that really killed it. BA and Air France made a profit on the routes they flew because they sold tickets to rockstars at a premium and they were given the planes for free. The sinister side is that the USA, at the behest of Boeing, who could not compete with the product, did everything in their power to prevent the success of Concord. The FAA has a remit to protect commercial interests of the USA so it did what it was obliged to do.
The sad result is that we no longer have any private or public means of travelling supersonically (unless you are Richard Branson and even then you can't take your Spaceship from LAX to LHR) and this is the result of the success of lawyers over engineers, regardless of nationality.
Farmer > Miner > Engineer > Doctor... everything else is payload
I struggle to understand the animosity towards Metro. Have any of you spent more than a few minutes trying to learn it? On both the phone and the desktop it works very well. There's a lot more to it than just 'the tiles'. Even on a multiscreen workstation, if you want to keep the traditional desktop you can, it's one click from metro after a reboot and you never have to see Metro again if you don't want to.
FFS, MS are, for the first time in ages, shipping interesting, quality products and world+dog is bitching about them...
It was 2002. I was used to using Windows98 at work and there was no Ubuntu or other even reasonably-accessible Linux that I was aware of. OSX was simply astonishing and was the first OS that made me interested in computing and programming.
I accept your assessment absolutely. My personal needs for Apps are pretty limited. I don't really game much (Doodlejump is as far as it goes). There's a good dropbox 3rd party app I use but then again there's an excellent free one from MS for cloud drive. Chase bank? I'm a Brit, who the hell are they? Although I would like an HSBC app, available for iOS and Android but not winphone, so I accept your point here.
The Nokias come with a lot of their own apps that make up for some of the OS shortcomings. The navi app, Drive, is worth the price of a TomTom and is pre-loaded. The network app fixes the mms apn stupidity. Nokia maps, music, reader etc etc. Most of these will get rolled into Apollo from what I've heard (prob not Drive)
There are some very nice apps from Facebook, Twitter, Amazon kindle and Marketplace. British Airways. We can only hope that the list keeps growing.
Nope. I'm the OP. Long time Mac fanboi and Linux hacker. Bought a Winphone off eBay and like I said in the post, it was the nearest feeling I've had to my first look at OSX. Remember the slating that OSX10.1 got (rightly so) because it didn't do what 9 did? But who would now ditch Lion for 9?
I've become progressively less appreciative of Apple in recent years and Windows 7 surprised me by being not horrible to use and always gets the first updates for all the OSS apps I use (FFox, TBird, Eclipse+Python, Fortran).
I'm more excited right now by the prospect of W8 and Apollo than anything except my regular dose of Ubuntu goodness, (and to open another can of worms, yes I like Unity and have even submitted a few patches.)
With WP7 I really think that MS should be given credit for, finally, coming up with an original idea that is really very good. I also think that MS should be at least respected for having written it all themselves, rather than stealing BSD (Apple) or Linux (Google). It's 2012 and I would no longer like to be in the position of saying which company is currently the most evil.
I really like the thing.
That said, I still have an HP WinCE thingy because I can run Python 2.5 on it and if you have a WP7 phone you HAVE to try Microsoft's scripting IDE: 'Touch Develop' - You can write simple apps directly on the phone. Saved my sanity in many meetings.
Other than the phone it's Ubuntu all the way for me, by the way - I've a reasonable rating on the help forum but I do quite like Unity, so I must be a bit wrong in the head.
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I have a Lumia 800. All of the people who have seen it have said the same two things: "Wow!" and "I never even knew there was a Windows phone" The quality of the product, both hard and software is there and will only improve with the new WP8 models. Take a look at the 920 specs. Everyone will know about Windows 8 in the next few weeks and WP8 will hitch a marketing ride on its coat tails. I don't understand "Ex-Nokia exec Tommi Ahonen's" problem with wanting to destroy his former employer. Maybe it's just to drive traffic to his blog?
For me his best was "Oath of Fealty" Although he is one of my favourite authors, and who couldn't but love Nessus the Puppeteer? generally his books rely on exceptionally well thought-out and executed physical realities but peopled by two-dimensional characters. Check out the story "Wait it Out" in the anthology "Tales of Known Space" to see what I mean: the most amazing concept but really quite poorly written.
I think Asher carries on the ideas of Banks and Reynolds, with a complex and self-consistent universe setting. Not really 'hard sf' in that he relies on 'U-space' (a kind of hyperspace) to enable the whole concept of the 'Polity' civilization to exist but he definitely adds his own twist. Like the Culture, the Polity is utopian in nature, but the controlling computer (AI) minds are more believable than Banks' in that they run the show based on calculations of most good to most people/entities so the decisions taken can often result in a lot of deaths and destruction. The level of violence is cranked up to eleven. The last one I read had prisoners of a drug gang being digested by eels to make a particularly strong narcotic and then the leader of the gang being eaten by a lizard in the denouement... His characterisations are usually quite good too. If you like Banks he's worth a try. Start with the Ian Cormac series.
True, and in order to keep flying the entire airframe and engines would have been required to demonstrate compliance to near-current certification standards, which means many hundreds of expensive and time-consuming tests, with no guarantee of success, consequent redesigns and retrofits. All in all it would be cheaper to design a new plane from scratch, but still too expensive even for the current luxury market. Else, why aren't the skies full of them?
Utter f*cking rubbish. I just installed W8 preview alongside Ubuntu 12.04 (yes, a sweet combination, Ithankyou). Of course the Winstaller doesn't nicely search out the other OSs but it was a couple of clicks on a bootable Ubuntu CD to fix this.
Concord(e) was an astonishing piece of engineering; it could achieve military jet performance with passenger transport reliability. Yes, it was horribly fuel inefficient by today's standards but it was designed in the 1960s. That is: fifty years ago! It was simply uneconomic in the end and in fact it was the requirement for the demonstration of continued airworthiness that really killed it. BA and Air France made a profit on the routes they flew because they sold tickets to rockstars at a premium and they were given the planes for free. The sinister side is that the USA, at the behest of Boeing, who could not compete with the product, did everything in their power to prevent the success of Concord. The FAA has a remit to protect commercial interests of the USA so it did what it was obliged to do. The sad result is that we no longer have any private or public means of travelling supersonically (unless you are Richard Branson and even then you can't take your Spaceship from LAX to LHR) and this is the result of the success of lawyers over engineers, regardless of nationality. Farmer > Miner > Engineer > Doctor... everything else is payload
I struggle to understand the animosity towards Metro. Have any of you spent more than a few minutes trying to learn it? On both the phone and the desktop it works very well. There's a lot more to it than just 'the tiles'. Even on a multiscreen workstation, if you want to keep the traditional desktop you can, it's one click from metro after a reboot and you never have to see Metro again if you don't want to. FFS, MS are, for the first time in ages, shipping interesting, quality products and world+dog is bitching about them...
And they would be wrong
It was 2002. I was used to using Windows98 at work and there was no Ubuntu or other even reasonably-accessible Linux that I was aware of. OSX was simply astonishing and was the first OS that made me interested in computing and programming.
I accept your assessment absolutely. My personal needs for Apps are pretty limited. I don't really game much (Doodlejump is as far as it goes). There's a good dropbox 3rd party app I use but then again there's an excellent free one from MS for cloud drive. Chase bank? I'm a Brit, who the hell are they? Although I would like an HSBC app, available for iOS and Android but not winphone, so I accept your point here. The Nokias come with a lot of their own apps that make up for some of the OS shortcomings. The navi app, Drive, is worth the price of a TomTom and is pre-loaded. The network app fixes the mms apn stupidity. Nokia maps, music, reader etc etc. Most of these will get rolled into Apollo from what I've heard (prob not Drive) There are some very nice apps from Facebook, Twitter, Amazon kindle and Marketplace. British Airways. We can only hope that the list keeps growing.
Nope. I'm the OP. Long time Mac fanboi and Linux hacker. Bought a Winphone off eBay and like I said in the post, it was the nearest feeling I've had to my first look at OSX. Remember the slating that OSX10.1 got (rightly so) because it didn't do what 9 did? But who would now ditch Lion for 9? I've become progressively less appreciative of Apple in recent years and Windows 7 surprised me by being not horrible to use and always gets the first updates for all the OSS apps I use (FFox, TBird, Eclipse+Python, Fortran). I'm more excited right now by the prospect of W8 and Apollo than anything except my regular dose of Ubuntu goodness, (and to open another can of worms, yes I like Unity and have even submitted a few patches.) With WP7 I really think that MS should be given credit for, finally, coming up with an original idea that is really very good. I also think that MS should be at least respected for having written it all themselves, rather than stealing BSD (Apple) or Linux (Google). It's 2012 and I would no longer like to be in the position of saying which company is currently the most evil.
I really like the thing. That said, I still have an HP WinCE thingy because I can run Python 2.5 on it and if you have a WP7 phone you HAVE to try Microsoft's scripting IDE: 'Touch Develop' - You can write simple apps directly on the phone. Saved my sanity in many meetings. Other than the phone it's Ubuntu all the way for me, by the way - I've a reasonable rating on the help forum but I do quite like Unity, so I must be a bit wrong in the head.