Android is designed to run on PHONES, not tablets and portable music players. Just because it can doesn't mean that's what it's designed for, and it would make sense to compare Android, which is predominately a mobile phone OS, to the just the iPhone which is a mobile phone as well.
That's like saying that Windows is the most popular PC operating system in the world then redefine PC as any machine that processes binary data in people's home; then some Linux nut says that you should include all devices that process binary data and Linux would be the clear winner because Linux covers mobile devices, servers, mainframes, and super computers as well as DVD players, routers, and DVRs. The market is sliced up iPhone vs Android because of the primary function (being a phone) that's being marketed, not what other companies have decided to make it do.
No, you were told Oracle was bad and and their commitment to OOo is a coin flip. Libre is just a way to settle the "who will support the open source nature of the program now?" No talking points needed for bad recall abilities.
I think you're overlooking the fact that you're more likely to get ripped off from bigger companies than piracy. For instance, you could go out of your way to make your instructional films, do an excellent job with them, only to find that a large publisher, such as Haynes, would rip your idea and force you out of the marketplace entirely. Your brand is totally unknown while Haynes is well known and respected. You don't really have a fair shot at making it.
Say what you want, but piracy is a market leveling function. While not ethical, it forces larger outfits to chase "mysteriously lost profits" from people who weren't going to buy there product anyway while the smaller outfits focus on building a quality product for their customers. People are constantly pointing to the music industry and their staggering profits as being in disarray, but if you ask any artist out there, all piracy did was help destroy the old brick and mortar and CD model, and gave even the smallest indie band an opportunity to level the playing field. Artist are now fighting for Social network friends and followers because selling a CD in a store for millions is a thing of the past.
The MPAA doesn't represent the interest of independent film makers. They're not going to go after people who illegally distribute Jaleel White's "Fake it of Make it' web series that he produced himself. But let someone distribute Family Matters, and they're all over it. Anything that you see come from the MPAA or the RIAA isn't in the best interest of anyone except large studios and their shareholders. Everyone else: fuck 'em. Now if you seen this kind of message come from the WGA, then there might be some legitimacy to this want to add into law. Otherwise, take it like a grain of salt in the sea.
Should have read at least the/. summary before posting. I got excited and thought Apple was trying to play nice with Google again. Well, nothing to see here. Everyone back to work and/or batin'
Considering how long it took Apple to approve this app, push notifications won't come via an update any time soon. At least this settles the FCC inquiry. I was worried when Apple reviewed my app for three days, I couldn't imagine the anxiety of waiting on Apple to finish a year long "In Review" status update.
Damn, I paid 5x as much for the same game. Although, I pirated the first Mass Effect as a try-and-see for the PC (I had never heard of the game). I loved the game so much that I felt guilty for not paying for it. When the second one was announced for sale, I paid full retail. I still downloaded the cracked exe though for no-cd option, as the game had to be installed via networked dvd-reader because mine was broke. Now, I just stick with Steam and GameTap.
Honestly, I find the lack of demos for PC games more of a pirating incentive than high prices. But even EA is attempting to try to get you to pay for demos now. Hell, I thought strippers were the only people charging for a demonstration/peep show.
Or Arkansas for that matter. I can get EDGE anywhere there's an interstate and 3G in Little Rock, the state's capitol, and Bentonville, Wal-Mart's headquarters. Anywhere else, you're lucky to get a signal at all. Every since T-Mobile cancelled their GSM sharing with AT&T, service has went to shit.
Really? All those loops just to compete with the other carriers? Why bother then? You'll spend more time wasted on setting a system like this up than you would just outright buying the service from a bigger carrier.
but walk into almost any office in the country and you'll find a desktop in almost every cube.
Great point. Towers offer something laptops can't compete with: interchangeability. It's a lot cheaper to replace a fan, hard drive, RAM, etc in a tower than a laptop. The only thing that comes anywhere near as cheap are thin clients. And since any major user of thin clients will be ordering a lot of them, the replacement cost is around $90-100. A lot cheaper than a $500 laptop.
SO, what you're telling us is that you're buying Apple gear, unsatisfied with the results, describe Android/PC features, yet, you continue to buy Apple gear. I'm not sure if there is something wrong with you or maybe Apple products are laced with a pheromone that forces you to buy more Apple products. Either way, you're exhibiting a very strange behavior for consumer purchasing. The only reasonable explanation is a wife who refuses to use anything else, for whatever social/symbolic reason.
Now on to what caught my eye. Inductive coupling requires resonate frequencies that won't cause interference with other parts on the device. An electronic toothbrush doesn't have too many parts to worry about. An iPad, on the other hand, does. Since you called it by an electrical engineering name, I'm going to assume you understand what I'm talking about. Finding that frequency may not be as easy as it looks. I can't say for sure as I never tried (wasn't part of my labs). But if you're that unsatisfied with your Apple purchases, then stop buying Apple products until they have what you're looking for in the tech.
This is an excellent point. While I personally wouldn't keep an iPad (I already purchased and returned it after two days), these things could make wonderful replacement PCs. They're brain-dead simple and have a support network for apps equal to that of Windows. However, there are just too many problems that prevent these devices from being replacement PCs: Flash support (a big one for all these "photo sharing" sites); mouse support (touch screens can often times be inefficient and lack precision); bluetooth file transfer (since USB support isn't going to happen, transferring files via bluetooth is a wonderful alternative. This requires a shared file system of course--another thing not likely to happen).
That's it. Change those few things, this makes a wonderful PC replacement device. Otherwise, plop Ubuntu on an x86 and hope for the best. Less maintenance cost (i.e. time) at the cost of easy software add-on accessibility.
"Despite what you might think, DirectX is fast and able when it comes to getting things to graphics cards."
This is a point I sort of agree with if it weren't for some Linux implementations of OpenGL. Regardless, Direct3D still remains the best 3D implementation out there, not because it's inherently "better," but because MS has had over a decade of being the largest benefactor of 3D games for computers. Dominating so much of the market for so long gives you the deep pockets necessary to invest in improving your 3D APIs. OpenGL has gotten a back seat and "throw me a bone" type of treatment. It's not that it's not capable, its just incomplete. Furthermore, DirectX is an entire stack while OpenGL is just one component.
For instance, DirectX has video overlay, 3d, sound, network, and input in one pretty, albeit expensive, package. OpenGL has...well Graphics. You have to plug in modules for everything else. While an OpenGL route allows greater flexibility and portability, DirectX offers conciseness, streamlined api, at the cost of a single, albeit largest, computer platform. I'm not sure why Apple nor the Linux crowd have adopted a streamlined multimedia layer that combines everything into a nice package. Apple has done a lot of this (especially for iOS) but not enough for the PC game making elite to take it seriously, yet. If Apple were to partner with Sony and port their OpenGL ES implementations from the PS3 to OS X, plop in a consistent library for sound and input, then maybe they'll be taken seriously as a gaming platform. Until then, Valve is still alone on this one.
Been there, done that, plants fart and the world commits suicide. Now if only Shiamalan would actually die in real life instead of his cameo appearances in his movies, then mistakes like "The Last Air Bender" could be avoided.
If your not familiar with C and its variants, I'd start with PHP. PHP is so similar to c++, yet so simple, it would be easier for you to dive in. Since it's a scripted language, you can see your mistakes without compilation and gradually slide you back into OOP. Then, use that same box and gcc to step into c++. You can also learn JavaScript and port what you've learned to Java. Html5 is an html spec that at its root, is xml. Which isn't programming.
With my Samsung Vibrant, I was shocked to see SO MUCH software on the device, and even more surprised that I couldn't remove the software at all (especially the DRM for the Avatar movie [which waste a gig on the free 2GB micro-SD card for the movie]). One thing I did notice, you can overwrite some default apps with an app you download off the net with the same name. I almost replaced the default Swype with my beta backup and re-downloaded Kindle from the Android Market and it asked me to replace the app with the same name too. I'm not sure if they have to be from the same publisher, but then again, just change the manifest file to match the app.
So maybe you can't uninstall the apps, but you may be able to replace them with dummy "service" apps that don't have icons or do anything. Side note, you can uninstall the 75MB Sims 3 game.
While your claims are true to some extent, the issue isn't that all phones suffer similar problems, but that Apple has marketed this phone as perfect, better than all others, and of course, Magical. When they say this so much, people are going to believe them and make an issue when the phone doesn't live up to the fluff. Essentially, Jobs just killed the brand by saying the iPhone is like every other smartphone. All this time I've been telling people you can't compare the iPhone to Android because they're not the same class or type of phone; looks like I was wrong.
Yeah, I should have been more clearer. I didn't mean that the society today can put together their tech and the future won't, but those putting the tech together will be forced to merge into the ignorance because we're making the tech easier for them to create/put together instead of teaching them the long way before the shortcut. Example: A JavaScript programmer gets so used to using jQuery or Prototype that they forget how to do the same task when they don't have access to those libraries. I've seen the same thing happen to high school students who are allowed to use calculators so much they forget how to do the math by hand and head. Realistically, this will probably never happen, but in the event that it does occur, our society might be in trouble if the brawns rid the brains.
I'm not trying to make this political, I'm just expressing my opinion (the only one I can give [yes, opinions are like...]).
But to answer some of your questions:
I still don't understand why current operating systems don't indicate the priviledge level an application is running at by, say, a coloured border. You'd still need to educate people on what it means, but a fairly simple safety gives them a lot more options than the stupid "well, you could open a console and run ps" geek solution.
This isn't dumbing the OS down, it's creating a different translations/interpretation. However, making all applications run at a root or guest level because informing the user about permissions is too difficult is dumbing down the software. This is one of the best features about Linux. If you're going into root, then you most likely know what you're doing. Otherwise, you stay at the user level and sudo your way down if needed. MS got this wrong until Windows 7. XP Home gave anyone admin run rights and Vista didn't give any.
I've written Linux kernel modules, and still I enjoy a good user interface design, because it makes my work easier, and more often than not I use the computer to actually accomplish something, not to mess with its interiors.
But this isn't dumbing the tech down, as you're probably still doing the same action, just in a different way. I can type up a business plan in VI all day long, or I can use a word processor with a more usable GUI to work faster. But I understand why I'm using the WP vs VI. The problem with our society today is we're dumbing our tech to match the ever lowering intellect. This isn't so much a problem in other parts of the world as it is here in the US.
I'm not talking about safety here, I'm talking about reducing our technology down to the point where the stupid are able to use it-- ONLY for the sake of profit. The motor vehicle is a marvelous technological breakthrough that reduced the time it took one to travel from one point to the other. However, it's also a moving death trap in the hands of the uneducated. Because it's so dangerous, every State in the US has a law that requires you to take an exam to ensure, to some degree, that you understand not only the rules of the road, but also how to operate the moving death box; only to reduce the chances of harming yourself and others. However, when we make the cars so that idiots receive less and less harm when in an accident, we have more and more wrecks. It's one of the reasons I admire roundabouts and traffic circles. Instead of providing traffic signals that people try to race with, ignoring the signs of a roundabout can be pretty unhealthy.
Now, don't equate that we need the government's blessing to use a browser and the internet, but I don't think we should shield the stupid who refuse to read the warning signs. I say keep doing what we're doing and at least keep a lot of/.'s with steady employment fixing Windows. Educate the ignorant, don't protect them.
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Android is designed to run on PHONES, not tablets and portable music players. Just because it can doesn't mean that's what it's designed for, and it would make sense to compare Android, which is predominately a mobile phone OS, to the just the iPhone which is a mobile phone as well.
That's like saying that Windows is the most popular PC operating system in the world then redefine PC as any machine that processes binary data in people's home; then some Linux nut says that you should include all devices that process binary data and Linux would be the clear winner because Linux covers mobile devices, servers, mainframes, and super computers as well as DVD players, routers, and DVRs. The market is sliced up iPhone vs Android because of the primary function (being a phone) that's being marketed, not what other companies have decided to make it do.
I dnt no abt that. I wld gess the prgrm that can trn this to a legble respns will be the savir for our new tnns of tday.
No, you were told Oracle was bad and and their commitment to OOo is a coin flip. Libre is just a way to settle the "who will support the open source nature of the program now?" No talking points needed for bad recall abilities.
I think you're overlooking the fact that you're more likely to get ripped off from bigger companies than piracy. For instance, you could go out of your way to make your instructional films, do an excellent job with them, only to find that a large publisher, such as Haynes, would rip your idea and force you out of the marketplace entirely. Your brand is totally unknown while Haynes is well known and respected. You don't really have a fair shot at making it.
Say what you want, but piracy is a market leveling function. While not ethical, it forces larger outfits to chase "mysteriously lost profits" from people who weren't going to buy there product anyway while the smaller outfits focus on building a quality product for their customers. People are constantly pointing to the music industry and their staggering profits as being in disarray, but if you ask any artist out there, all piracy did was help destroy the old brick and mortar and CD model, and gave even the smallest indie band an opportunity to level the playing field. Artist are now fighting for Social network friends and followers because selling a CD in a store for millions is a thing of the past.
The MPAA doesn't represent the interest of independent film makers. They're not going to go after people who illegally distribute Jaleel White's "Fake it of Make it' web series that he produced himself. But let someone distribute Family Matters, and they're all over it. Anything that you see come from the MPAA or the RIAA isn't in the best interest of anyone except large studios and their shareholders. Everyone else: fuck 'em. Now if you seen this kind of message come from the WGA, then there might be some legitimacy to this want to add into law. Otherwise, take it like a grain of salt in the sea.
Should have read at least the /. summary before posting. I got excited and thought Apple was trying to play nice with Google again. Well, nothing to see here. Everyone back to work and/or batin'
Considering how long it took Apple to approve this app, push notifications won't come via an update any time soon. At least this settles the FCC inquiry. I was worried when Apple reviewed my app for three days, I couldn't imagine the anxiety of waiting on Apple to finish a year long "In Review" status update.
".. Given that I paid £10 to get the game.."
Damn, I paid 5x as much for the same game. Although, I pirated the first Mass Effect as a try-and-see for the PC (I had never heard of the game). I loved the game so much that I felt guilty for not paying for it. When the second one was announced for sale, I paid full retail. I still downloaded the cracked exe though for no-cd option, as the game had to be installed via networked dvd-reader because mine was broke. Now, I just stick with Steam and GameTap.
Honestly, I find the lack of demos for PC games more of a pirating incentive than high prices. But even EA is attempting to try to get you to pay for demos now. Hell, I thought strippers were the only people charging for a demonstration/peep show.
Or Arkansas for that matter. I can get EDGE anywhere there's an interstate and 3G in Little Rock, the state's capitol, and Bentonville, Wal-Mart's headquarters. Anywhere else, you're lucky to get a signal at all. Every since T-Mobile cancelled their GSM sharing with AT&T, service has went to shit.
Really? All those loops just to compete with the other carriers? Why bother then? You'll spend more time wasted on setting a system like this up than you would just outright buying the service from a bigger carrier.
but walk into almost any office in the country and you'll find a desktop in almost every cube.
Great point. Towers offer something laptops can't compete with: interchangeability. It's a lot cheaper to replace a fan, hard drive, RAM, etc in a tower than a laptop. The only thing that comes anywhere near as cheap are thin clients. And since any major user of thin clients will be ordering a lot of them, the replacement cost is around $90-100. A lot cheaper than a $500 laptop.
Macs don't die.
Try telling that to my poor iBook. Died a year ago and won't come back from the grave. Just gives me my waking "chime."
SO, what you're telling us is that you're buying Apple gear, unsatisfied with the results, describe Android/PC features, yet, you continue to buy Apple gear. I'm not sure if there is something wrong with you or maybe Apple products are laced with a pheromone that forces you to buy more Apple products. Either way, you're exhibiting a very strange behavior for consumer purchasing. The only reasonable explanation is a wife who refuses to use anything else, for whatever social/symbolic reason.
Now on to what caught my eye. Inductive coupling requires resonate frequencies that won't cause interference with other parts on the device. An electronic toothbrush doesn't have too many parts to worry about. An iPad, on the other hand, does. Since you called it by an electrical engineering name, I'm going to assume you understand what I'm talking about. Finding that frequency may not be as easy as it looks. I can't say for sure as I never tried (wasn't part of my labs). But if you're that unsatisfied with your Apple purchases, then stop buying Apple products until they have what you're looking for in the tech.
This is an excellent point. While I personally wouldn't keep an iPad (I already purchased and returned it after two days), these things could make wonderful replacement PCs. They're brain-dead simple and have a support network for apps equal to that of Windows. However, there are just too many problems that prevent these devices from being replacement PCs: Flash support (a big one for all these "photo sharing" sites); mouse support (touch screens can often times be inefficient and lack precision); bluetooth file transfer (since USB support isn't going to happen, transferring files via bluetooth is a wonderful alternative. This requires a shared file system of course--another thing not likely to happen).
That's it. Change those few things, this makes a wonderful PC replacement device. Otherwise, plop Ubuntu on an x86 and hope for the best. Less maintenance cost (i.e. time) at the cost of easy software add-on accessibility.
...Parents exist to protect inventions ...
Huh, all this time I thought my job as a parent was to protect, provide, and nurture my kids. Now I have to protect inventions too?
Damn, I knew there was a catch.
"Despite what you might think, DirectX is fast and able when it comes to getting things to graphics cards."
This is a point I sort of agree with if it weren't for some Linux implementations of OpenGL. Regardless, Direct3D still remains the best 3D implementation out there, not because it's inherently "better," but because MS has had over a decade of being the largest benefactor of 3D games for computers. Dominating so much of the market for so long gives you the deep pockets necessary to invest in improving your 3D APIs. OpenGL has gotten a back seat and "throw me a bone" type of treatment. It's not that it's not capable, its just incomplete. Furthermore, DirectX is an entire stack while OpenGL is just one component.
For instance, DirectX has video overlay, 3d, sound, network, and input in one pretty, albeit expensive, package. OpenGL has...well Graphics. You have to plug in modules for everything else. While an OpenGL route allows greater flexibility and portability, DirectX offers conciseness, streamlined api, at the cost of a single, albeit largest, computer platform. I'm not sure why Apple nor the Linux crowd have adopted a streamlined multimedia layer that combines everything into a nice package. Apple has done a lot of this (especially for iOS) but not enough for the PC game making elite to take it seriously, yet. If Apple were to partner with Sony and port their OpenGL ES implementations from the PS3 to OS X, plop in a consistent library for sound and input, then maybe they'll be taken seriously as a gaming platform. Until then, Valve is still alone on this one.
Been there, done that, plants fart and the world commits suicide. Now if only Shiamalan would actually die in real life instead of his cameo appearances in his movies, then mistakes like "The Last Air Bender" could be avoided.
If your not familiar with C and its variants, I'd start with PHP. PHP is so similar to c++, yet so simple, it would be easier for you to dive in. Since it's a scripted language, you can see your mistakes without compilation and gradually slide you back into OOP. Then, use that same box and gcc to step into c++. You can also learn JavaScript and port what you've learned to Java. Html5 is an html spec that at its root, is xml. Which isn't programming.
With my Samsung Vibrant, I was shocked to see SO MUCH software on the device, and even more surprised that I couldn't remove the software at all (especially the DRM for the Avatar movie [which waste a gig on the free 2GB micro-SD card for the movie]). One thing I did notice, you can overwrite some default apps with an app you download off the net with the same name. I almost replaced the default Swype with my beta backup and re-downloaded Kindle from the Android Market and it asked me to replace the app with the same name too. I'm not sure if they have to be from the same publisher, but then again, just change the manifest file to match the app.
So maybe you can't uninstall the apps, but you may be able to replace them with dummy "service" apps that don't have icons or do anything. Side note, you can uninstall the 75MB Sims 3 game.
The first Jobs to 2Pac reference. Funny.
While your claims are true to some extent, the issue isn't that all phones suffer similar problems, but that Apple has marketed this phone as perfect, better than all others, and of course, Magical. When they say this so much, people are going to believe them and make an issue when the phone doesn't live up to the fluff. Essentially, Jobs just killed the brand by saying the iPhone is like every other smartphone. All this time I've been telling people you can't compare the iPhone to Android because they're not the same class or type of phone; looks like I was wrong.
Seems like you must have read Google's business plans. This almost exactly how they create new projects that turn into products.
Speaking of new hardware, why don't we have a camera that can take reflected light and convert it into vector pixels?
Legitimate question as google didn't produce any usable results.
You can always tell where hack-a-day and /. readers are one and the same.
Yeah, I should have been more clearer. I didn't mean that the society today can put together their tech and the future won't, but those putting the tech together will be forced to merge into the ignorance because we're making the tech easier for them to create/put together instead of teaching them the long way before the shortcut. Example: A JavaScript programmer gets so used to using jQuery or Prototype that they forget how to do the same task when they don't have access to those libraries. I've seen the same thing happen to high school students who are allowed to use calculators so much they forget how to do the math by hand and head. Realistically, this will probably never happen, but in the event that it does occur, our society might be in trouble if the brawns rid the brains.
I'm not trying to make this political, I'm just expressing my opinion (the only one I can give [yes, opinions are like...]).
But to answer some of your questions:
I still don't understand why current operating systems don't indicate the priviledge level an application is running at by, say, a coloured border. You'd still need to educate people on what it means, but a fairly simple safety gives them a lot more options than the stupid "well, you could open a console and run ps" geek solution.
This isn't dumbing the OS down, it's creating a different translations/interpretation. However, making all applications run at a root or guest level because informing the user about permissions is too difficult is dumbing down the software. This is one of the best features about Linux. If you're going into root, then you most likely know what you're doing. Otherwise, you stay at the user level and sudo your way down if needed. MS got this wrong until Windows 7. XP Home gave anyone admin run rights and Vista didn't give any.
I've written Linux kernel modules, and still I enjoy a good user interface design, because it makes my work easier, and more often than not I use the computer to actually accomplish something, not to mess with its interiors.
But this isn't dumbing the tech down, as you're probably still doing the same action, just in a different way. I can type up a business plan in VI all day long, or I can use a word processor with a more usable GUI to work faster. But I understand why I'm using the WP vs VI. The problem with our society today is we're dumbing our tech to match the ever lowering intellect. This isn't so much a problem in other parts of the world as it is here in the US.
I'm not talking about safety here, I'm talking about reducing our technology down to the point where the stupid are able to use it-- ONLY for the sake of profit. The motor vehicle is a marvelous technological breakthrough that reduced the time it took one to travel from one point to the other. However, it's also a moving death trap in the hands of the uneducated. Because it's so dangerous, every State in the US has a law that requires you to take an exam to ensure, to some degree, that you understand not only the rules of the road, but also how to operate the moving death box; only to reduce the chances of harming yourself and others. However, when we make the cars so that idiots receive less and less harm when in an accident, we have more and more wrecks. It's one of the reasons I admire roundabouts and traffic circles. Instead of providing traffic signals that people try to race with, ignoring the signs of a roundabout can be pretty unhealthy.
Now, don't equate that we need the government's blessing to use a browser and the internet, but I don't think we should shield the stupid who refuse to read the warning signs. I say keep doing what we're doing and at least keep a lot of /.'s with steady employment fixing Windows. Educate the ignorant, don't protect them.