It seems like the did some targeted development work on things that appear in the ads. You can ask basic questions in complex working, like specific facts about the weather report, and Siri will parse appropriately.
You can ask joke kinds of questions, and Siri often has a clever reply. I asked once "What do you think of Android" and Siri said "I think differently." But you can't yet ask questions like, "Who was the super bowl MVP in 1982?" and get an answer without Siri saying LMGTFY. That kind of functionality would be awesome, but it's not there yet.
They marketed the fact that they had a seamless video chat experience. You have the software, the hardware, it was configured to work immediately, and other people you know had all these things too.
There weren't a whole lot of grandparents using skype, before. Certainly there weren't many grandparents adding cameras and mics to their desktop. But how often do you hear today that a grandma and grandpa Facetime with their grandchildren - not because they know which end of a computer to talk to, but because they bought an iPad, and you just have to push that facetime button and you're up and running.
That's something I dislike about iOS, that applications suspend in the way they do - sometimes I'd like for them to run in the background and for me to be able to define what that app does when "minimized" - suspend, or just move to the background.
But I guess that interferes with what Apple sees as the higher good, which is keeping memory free and thus the UI not slowing down.
One thing that really is useful is that you can control the phone's features themselves by voice and that part of Siri is pretty seamless. "Call mom". "Read me that text message". "Set alarm for 7:00 am". You can also dictate things you'd normally have to type and it works pretty well.
As far as the commercials go, asking Siri general knowledge questions... it's not there yet. "Where is the closest Thai restaurant?" works well, things that require interpretation don't really work well.
For me, Siri is best to control the phone, not to seek information from the web.
The "innovation" with facetime is that you just push a button and it works, and chances are a lot of people you know have an iOS device, so you can actually use it.
Before 3-4 years ago video chat wasn't nearly this trivial, and basically no novice users were using it.
Why, if it's "all in the marketing", are the results pretty consistently that Apple does something, people eat it up, and then competitors fall all over themselves trying to copy it? It's not always their original idea, but they often deliver the first implementation of the idea that is widely accepted.
It's not all marketing, and any impartial look at things will tell you that. They deliver the smoothest user experience. The fact that it isn't the best product to please neckbeards does not mean it's nothing but marketing, though naturally neckbeards will see it that way.
Most people are not only incapable of compiling their own sound drivers or loading custom roms onto their devices, they don't feel like they should have to start wrenching immediately to get a device to work they way they want it to.
Apple makes things that work the way 80% of the population wants them to, smoothly and thoughtlessly.
No, of course they won't. Their incentive is to drive profits upward, not downward.
I'm sure they will want to eliminate physical disks in the future too, because it's an uncontrollable medium. MSFT will want everyone playing digitally downloaded games (which cost the consumer the same as the physical ones), which are really only a license-to-play and can be deleted from your drive or non-supported by XBL at any time.
It's not the evil that is the issue, it's who does it and what we think of them.
Apple does Evil E. Google does E as well. Apple does E because they are evil. Google does E but it's okay, because they promise for the moment not to advance beyond E, and because they have goodness in their hearts.
Without a used market they won't sell me a new console, controllers, etc.; they'll lose revenue on the few games I would actually buy new; they'd lose any money I might spend on digital purchases as well.
There's also the risk I would be driven to a competitor's product, or lose interest in gaming altogether, which costs them down the road.
Microsoft is the enduring force for truth, justice, and the American way - in the console market. Sony is the devilish corporatist plutocrat outfit in this sector that we love to hate. If you want free mod-ups, you have to bash Sony in game threads, MSFT in PC threads:)
Personally, the online keys were the last straw for me.
The fact that used games were available at half price was the reason I was playing in the first place. I trade the first 6-12 months of a game's release for the discount. I wouldn't pay $60 to cram into Modern Warfare on release day with everyone else anyway.
This is the miscalculation the game companies are making - they won't be able to force us into playing $60 and up for games we'd previously bought used for $30, we just won't play the games at all.
They are also missing the point that the presence of a used market drives sales, because you aren't so skittish about blowing $60 on a game if you know you can recoup some of that later.
This is a bad idea. I know that suits and PHB's think "Well, they can't get used games anymore - they'll buy the full priced ones instead!" but they've got another thing coming.
Every sentence in this should be prefaced with "Today". Today that's true, but they are clearly trying to take over the market Facebook has monopolized, and the information is no good without selling it.
I know Google is beloved by groupthink here, but if people think they wouldn't love to do what Facebook is doing, you're fooling yourselves.
Facebook, and increasingly Google, ARE personal information vendors. Compiling your personal information and selling it to advertisers, or the promise that they will be able to do this in the future, are the basis for their market cap.
all it's missing is the editorializing in the summary.
"It will be interesting to see how the corporatist plutocrats in Washington respond to this blowing of the cover-up and how it proves that Google is actually regarded as a diety by every galactic culture but ours..."
Microsoft's mobile business essentially IS extorting money from Android manufacturers to indemnify themselves against litigation, I'm not sure why Apple wouldn't try their hand at it too.
Obviously, this is AT&T's attempt to stop anyone from using Netflix from their mobile device, when not using wifi.
We've seen articles on/. estimating that Netflix streaming traffic constitutes a big chunk of all internet traffic. AT&T's mobile network is already shoddy compared to all competitors - the last thing they need is people streaming movies.
It's a transparent attempt to more or less outlaw this one specific app.
Slashdot Mirror
Explain the N9 then, actively crippled by Nokia itself, not for sale in shops in many countries AND still it sells more.
It doesn't run WP7.
The phones don't sell because they run WP7.
The phones run WP7 because Nokia sold its remaining soul to MSFT.
Nokia sold its remaining soul to MSFT in exchange for continued existence.
Prolonging the inevitable doesn't make it any less inevitable.
It seems like the did some targeted development work on things that appear in the ads. You can ask basic questions in complex working, like specific facts about the weather report, and Siri will parse appropriately.
You can ask joke kinds of questions, and Siri often has a clever reply. I asked once "What do you think of Android" and Siri said "I think differently." But you can't yet ask questions like, "Who was the super bowl MVP in 1982?" and get an answer without Siri saying LMGTFY. That kind of functionality would be awesome, but it's not there yet.
They marketed the fact that they had a seamless video chat experience. You have the software, the hardware, it was configured to work immediately, and other people you know had all these things too.
There weren't a whole lot of grandparents using skype, before. Certainly there weren't many grandparents adding cameras and mics to their desktop. But how often do you hear today that a grandma and grandpa Facetime with their grandchildren - not because they know which end of a computer to talk to, but because they bought an iPad, and you just have to push that facetime button and you're up and running.
That's something I dislike about iOS, that applications suspend in the way they do - sometimes I'd like for them to run in the background and for me to be able to define what that app does when "minimized" - suspend, or just move to the background.
But I guess that interferes with what Apple sees as the higher good, which is keeping memory free and thus the UI not slowing down.
Having used both, I think Siri works much, much better at controlling the phone.
Siri isn't quite there yet.
One thing that really is useful is that you can control the phone's features themselves by voice and that part of Siri is pretty seamless. "Call mom". "Read me that text message". "Set alarm for 7:00 am". You can also dictate things you'd normally have to type and it works pretty well.
As far as the commercials go, asking Siri general knowledge questions... it's not there yet. "Where is the closest Thai restaurant?" works well, things that require interpretation don't really work well.
For me, Siri is best to control the phone, not to seek information from the web.
The "innovation" with facetime is that you just push a button and it works, and chances are a lot of people you know have an iOS device, so you can actually use it.
Before 3-4 years ago video chat wasn't nearly this trivial, and basically no novice users were using it.
Why, if it's "all in the marketing", are the results pretty consistently that Apple does something, people eat it up, and then competitors fall all over themselves trying to copy it? It's not always their original idea, but they often deliver the first implementation of the idea that is widely accepted.
It's not all marketing, and any impartial look at things will tell you that. They deliver the smoothest user experience. The fact that it isn't the best product to please neckbeards does not mean it's nothing but marketing, though naturally neckbeards will see it that way.
Most people are not only incapable of compiling their own sound drivers or loading custom roms onto their devices, they don't feel like they should have to start wrenching immediately to get a device to work they way they want it to.
Apple makes things that work the way 80% of the population wants them to, smoothly and thoughtlessly.
It'll teach their customers a lesson - to switch to another carrier.
The idea that AT&T could ask customers to pay even more while at the same time offering such a crappy data network is patently absurd.
Some of us want a more robust gaming experience than TuxSweeper, et al
No, of course they won't. Their incentive is to drive profits upward, not downward.
I'm sure they will want to eliminate physical disks in the future too, because it's an uncontrollable medium. MSFT will want everyone playing digitally downloaded games (which cost the consumer the same as the physical ones), which are really only a license-to-play and can be deleted from your drive or non-supported by XBL at any time.
It's not the evil that is the issue, it's who does it and what we think of them.
Apple does Evil E. Google does E as well. Apple does E because they are evil. Google does E but it's okay, because they promise for the moment not to advance beyond E, and because they have goodness in their hearts.
Without a used market they won't sell me a new console, controllers, etc.; they'll lose revenue on the few games I would actually buy new; they'd lose any money I might spend on digital purchases as well.
There's also the risk I would be driven to a competitor's product, or lose interest in gaming altogether, which costs them down the road.
You're beyond the pale of /. orthodoxy.
Microsoft is the enduring force for truth, justice, and the American way - in the console market. Sony is the devilish corporatist plutocrat outfit in this sector that we love to hate. If you want free mod-ups, you have to bash Sony in game threads, MSFT in PC threads :)
Personally, the online keys were the last straw for me.
The fact that used games were available at half price was the reason I was playing in the first place. I trade the first 6-12 months of a game's release for the discount. I wouldn't pay $60 to cram into Modern Warfare on release day with everyone else anyway.
This is the miscalculation the game companies are making - they won't be able to force us into playing $60 and up for games we'd previously bought used for $30, we just won't play the games at all.
They are also missing the point that the presence of a used market drives sales, because you aren't so skittish about blowing $60 on a game if you know you can recoup some of that later.
This is a bad idea. I know that suits and PHB's think "Well, they can't get used games anymore - they'll buy the full priced ones instead!" but they've got another thing coming.
Every sentence in this should be prefaced with "Today". Today that's true, but they are clearly trying to take over the market Facebook has monopolized, and the information is no good without selling it.
I know Google is beloved by groupthink here, but if people think they wouldn't love to do what Facebook is doing, you're fooling yourselves.
Facebook, and increasingly Google, ARE personal information vendors. Compiling your personal information and selling it to advertisers, or the promise that they will be able to do this in the future, are the basis for their market cap.
all it's missing is the editorializing in the summary.
"It will be interesting to see how the corporatist plutocrats in Washington respond to this blowing of the cover-up and how it proves that Google is actually regarded as a diety by every galactic culture but ours..."
Question is - how much money did they won from that one ruling in favor ?
As the case wasn't tried in South Korea, I think the award was probably in dollars.
Microsoft's mobile business essentially IS extorting money from Android manufacturers to indemnify themselves against litigation, I'm not sure why Apple wouldn't try their hand at it too.
Doesn't matter that much. In 2010, $100 million would have been about one tenth of one percent of Apple's income.
So... what material will we be printing on, into which you can pour molten steel or iron?
Obviously, this is AT&T's attempt to stop anyone from using Netflix from their mobile device, when not using wifi.
We've seen articles on /. estimating that Netflix streaming traffic constitutes a big chunk of all internet traffic. AT&T's mobile network is already shoddy compared to all competitors - the last thing they need is people streaming movies.
It's a transparent attempt to more or less outlaw this one specific app.
From where did the government derive a "need" to be in the venture capital business?