This makes complete sense to everyone except for a couple little complainers in the forum post. I mean, it's really, really simple.
1. The real, unsubsidized price of the iPhone is $399 for the 16GB and $499 for the 32GB version. 2. You can get a $200 discount by locking yourself into a 2 year contract with AT&T. 3. If you're not at the end of your current 2 year contract (for which you already got a $200 discount off your last iPhone), you can't get another $200 discount on another new phone.
I mean, really. This is basic, basic cell phone stuff in the US here.
The iPhone camera is fixed focus and can't shoot video (at least not out of the box). And there is no compass. A compass is handy for turn-by-turn navigation and other neat-o things like street view on the G1 making use of the built-in compass: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PRfVKzuUJ4
Let's hope they fix the bug in the Program Compatibility Assistance that installers that don't affect certain registry keys in add/remove to have an error. It basically kills off lots of updaters, plugin installers and PortableApps.com Installers: http://portableapps.com/node/18540
Of course there is an Apple tax, there always has been. It's easier to see now that Apple is building their computers using the same processors that PCs are. You can get the equivalent components in a PC for around 70% of the cost of the Mac basically across the board. But Macs have some things the PC doesn't (the Mac 'style', the magnetic power cord, the unibody constructions of the higher end notebooks... and then there's Mac OS X). If someone wants a Mac, they buy a Mac. If they don't care about the OS or the style and just have specific requirements (most hardware for the $, just the usual web/email/documents, a 17" laptop under $1,000, a netbook, etc) they buy a PC.
What they want to do is not in the spirit of open source. Just post the source code with a proprietary shared source license the same way Microsoft and others do. That way they have the source code available for review but no one is allowed to use it without paying them. Which is exactly what they want.
Good luck this summer. Just be sure not to schedule the surgery on or near July 4th weekend (worst time to be in a hospital). I'm sure you have some other donors you're talking to but if you have any questions, you can ping me via my homepage.
You also have to consider the cost over time. My father got a kidney transplant and is on anti-rejection drugs (as well as lots of other stuff). It's not cheap. And he's on them for life.
The newspapers here are obviously being given a choice between:
A) Google aggregates/indexes their content, shows snippets and images and links to them
B) They opt-out using robots.txt or metatags and no longer appear in Google News
What the whiners really want is:
C) Google aggregates/indexes their content, shows snippets and images and links to them AND PAYS THEM
But since they don't want to come right out and say that, they bitch and moan about copyright and monopolies and aliens and whatever else they can think of.
I think this could easily be solved if Google called their bluff. When each entity gets whiny and preachy and targets Google with these types of stories, Google should ask them if they'd like to be removed... Yes or No. If they refuse to choose yes or no, Google dumps them. Within a week, their traffic will drop so much that they'll be begging Google to be back in.
IANAL, but as the CEO himself had said they wouldn't crack down on people tethering, I believe you have a case of false advertising in most states and could now return your phone if you so desired.
Feel that breeze? That was the point of the commercial and what the fictitious 'real' person wanted zipping right over your head.
A 17 inch laptop that did what she needed. That's what she wanted. Not a super-uber high end laptop cable of video rendering. Just a basic 17 inch laptop capable of doing what she needed.
Apple didn't offer that at her price point. Not even close. The only thing they offered even close to her price point was a 13 inch MacBook for $1300, which broke her budget (at about twice what she paid for the HP) and had a screen way smaller than she wanted.
...or make some bad movies about giant alligators/snakes/voles/whatevers attacking extremely dumb people (but still smarter than anyone who could sit through one of those movies).
As always, you can try it out by downloading the portable version - Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition - from PortableApps.com. It won't affect your local 3.0.7 install, so you can try out the features of the new beta without worrying about it affecting your extensions or settings.
This is nothing new here. And it's so well known to people who enjoy scifi that, at this point, the blame is shared by the creators of the show. So, now, I believe it is safe to say:
If you have an awesome idea/concept/script/pilot for a scifi show and you end up going with Fox to get it on the air, you are a FUCKING MORON.
In the press releases where they claim to be the fastest, bestest browser, they're comparing the beta release of Safari 4 to the shipping release of Firefox 3.0 instead of the beta release of Firefox 3.1 which is more accurate. This is typical of most of Apple's marketing.
I didn't see the alpha then beta then release candidate builds... all released publicly and tested by tens or hundreds of thousands of people with Go-OO as I did with OpenOffice.org. How can it be considered a stable production release without a widely distributed public testing?
Go-OO is considered a development build/branch and should not be used in a production environment. It doesn't go through the level of testing and QA of OpenOffice.org for each release.
Firefox 2 uses an older version of the anti-phishing that will no longer be supported by Google (the provider of the database). So, whether Mozilla removes it or not, v1 is giong away.
2.0.0.19 is the final release of Firefox 2. As soon as it is released, Firefox 2 has reached its end of life and will no longer be updated or supported (no new features, no bug fixes, no security updates). So, it doesn't make much sense to worry about the anti-phishing feature being updated when the browser itself can no longer be assured of being secure due to possible bugs, etc.
This makes complete sense to everyone except for a couple little complainers in the forum post. I mean, it's really, really simple.
1. The real, unsubsidized price of the iPhone is $399 for the 16GB and $499 for the 32GB version.
2. You can get a $200 discount by locking yourself into a 2 year contract with AT&T.
3. If you're not at the end of your current 2 year contract (for which you already got a $200 discount off your last iPhone), you can't get another $200 discount on another new phone.
I mean, really. This is basic, basic cell phone stuff in the US here.
Sure it can. I mean it's not gonna be the quality of a camcorder, but it's decent: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0A2tMTEI7M
And you can upload it directly to YouTube from your G1, which is handy.
The iPhone camera is fixed focus and can't shoot video (at least not out of the box). And there is no compass. A compass is handy for turn-by-turn navigation and other neat-o things like street view on the G1 making use of the built-in compass: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PRfVKzuUJ4
I'll give up the shiny UI for the ability to install any app I want and a hardware keyboard.
"things like an auto-focus camera, video capture, and a compass"
You mean they're gonna release a G1?
Let's hope they fix the bug in the Program Compatibility Assistance that installers that don't affect certain registry keys in add/remove to have an error. It basically kills off lots of updaters, plugin installers and PortableApps.com Installers:
http://portableapps.com/node/18540
Of course there is an Apple tax, there always has been. It's easier to see now that Apple is building their computers using the same processors that PCs are. You can get the equivalent components in a PC for around 70% of the cost of the Mac basically across the board. But Macs have some things the PC doesn't (the Mac 'style', the magnetic power cord, the unibody constructions of the higher end notebooks... and then there's Mac OS X). If someone wants a Mac, they buy a Mac. If they don't care about the OS or the style and just have specific requirements (most hardware for the $, just the usual web/email/documents, a 17" laptop under $1,000, a netbook, etc) they buy a PC.
What they want to do is not in the spirit of open source. Just post the source code with a proprietary shared source license the same way Microsoft and others do. That way they have the source code available for review but no one is allowed to use it without paying them. Which is exactly what they want.
Good luck this summer. Just be sure not to schedule the surgery on or near July 4th weekend (worst time to be in a hospital). I'm sure you have some other donors you're talking to but if you have any questions, you can ping me via my homepage.
You also have to consider the cost over time. My father got a kidney transplant and is on anti-rejection drugs (as well as lots of other stuff). It's not cheap. And he's on them for life.
The newspapers here are obviously being given a choice between:
A) Google aggregates/indexes their content, shows snippets and images and links to them
B) They opt-out using robots.txt or metatags and no longer appear in Google News
What the whiners really want is:
C) Google aggregates/indexes their content, shows snippets and images and links to them AND PAYS THEM
But since they don't want to come right out and say that, they bitch and moan about copyright and monopolies and aliens and whatever else they can think of.
I think this could easily be solved if Google called their bluff. When each entity gets whiny and preachy and targets Google with these types of stories, Google should ask them if they'd like to be removed... Yes or No. If they refuse to choose yes or no, Google dumps them. Within a week, their traffic will drop so much that they'll be begging Google to be back in.
IANAL, but as the CEO himself had said they wouldn't crack down on people tethering, I believe you have a case of false advertising in most states and could now return your phone if you so desired.
Feel that breeze? That was the point of the commercial and what the fictitious 'real' person wanted zipping right over your head.
A 17 inch laptop that did what she needed. That's what she wanted. Not a super-uber high end laptop cable of video rendering. Just a basic 17 inch laptop capable of doing what she needed.
Apple didn't offer that at her price point. Not even close. The only thing they offered even close to her price point was a 13 inch MacBook for $1300, which broke her budget (at about twice what she paid for the HP) and had a screen way smaller than she wanted.
...or make some bad movies about giant alligators/snakes/voles/whatevers attacking extremely dumb people (but still smarter than anyone who could sit through one of those movies).
That weren't no shark!
As always, you can try it out by downloading the portable version - Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition - from PortableApps.com. It won't affect your local 3.0.7 install, so you can try out the features of the new beta without worrying about it affecting your extensions or settings.
http://portableapps.com/news/2009-03-12_-_firefox_portable_3.1_beta_3
This is nothing new here. And it's so well known to people who enjoy scifi that, at this point, the blame is shared by the creators of the show. So, now, I believe it is safe to say:
If you have an awesome idea/concept/script/pilot for a scifi show and you end up going with Fox to get it on the air, you are a FUCKING MORON.
The did in the graphs, but in their statements about how awesome they are and how much faster, they only compare it to Firefox 3.0
In the press releases where they claim to be the fastest, bestest browser, they're comparing the beta release of Safari 4 to the shipping release of Firefox 3.0 instead of the beta release of Firefox 3.1 which is more accurate. This is typical of most of Apple's marketing.
Safari's share is more like 7.5%. And it's lower than that on most technology oriented sites.
Apple has been doing this to Windows users for a while not. Why shouldn't Google do this to Mac users?
Maxthon and Avant are just IE shells, so they shouldn't be considered.
SeaMonkey isn't yet ready for prime time (2.0 is not release-worthy and 1.x is woefully outdated).
Amaya is meant as a tech demo and to check code, not as a daily browser.
The only one on your list that would be considered would be Flock.
Realistically, Safari should be removed from the original list because it's such a clusterfuck on Windows.
Of course, you're right... it's all moot and a rather slippery slope.
I didn't see the alpha then beta then release candidate builds... all released publicly and tested by tens or hundreds of thousands of people with Go-OO as I did with OpenOffice.org. How can it be considered a stable production release without a widely distributed public testing?
Go-OO is considered a development build/branch and should not be used in a production environment. It doesn't go through the level of testing and QA of OpenOffice.org for each release.
Firefox 2 uses an older version of the anti-phishing that will no longer be supported by Google (the provider of the database). So, whether Mozilla removes it or not, v1 is giong away.
2.0.0.19 is the final release of Firefox 2. As soon as it is released, Firefox 2 has reached its end of life and will no longer be updated or supported (no new features, no bug fixes, no security updates). So, it doesn't make much sense to worry about the anti-phishing feature being updated when the browser itself can no longer be assured of being secure due to possible bugs, etc.
... no one cares about Silverlight.