I can see the facebook phone now... its microphone eavesdrops on your retail transactions and catalogues your purchases. It senses other people with the facebook phone in near proximity and suggests that you may know them. It removes the bother of checking yourself in to every commercial location you pass through. When you walk by a store it alerts you to go in and check out a sale. It bleats and mooos when your Farmville farm needs attention. (I can see it now, drivers mowing down pedestrians because the chocolate milk cow needed water)
This is a good thing, from a certain point of view.
Maybe this will keep location tracking completely out of Android, and those of us who don't want our phones surreptitiously storing and reporting this information to anyone who has the aptitude to find it will be safe from that fear.
Sure, Android has the checkbox you can uncheck, but how do you really know it's off? How do we really know that an app doesn't flip it back on? How do you know malware or adware doesn't or won't capture it?
Certainly there are some benefits to having maps show you your current location, but the privacy concerns are bigger IMO
There were leaked screenshots from the internal inventory system that showed massive amounts of pre-orders.
I'm not sure what the internet douchebag dictionary definition of "on sale" is, but if you can pre-order it and it's shipping today and people are being charged for it today, I think that qualifies as "on sale".
You could also look at this article from PCmag detailing 500k pre-orders in the first month, and almost 100k on the first day.
There hasn't been a lot of time between where they forked Android and several months ago, when you'd have expected the Fire's OS to be in a mostly completed state.
I'm guessing there will be updates that refine the platform more, especially as big as it's selling. Amazon is serious about it, so I've no doubt they will address it.
Because most people don't need a $500 device to do what they want a tablet to do. The Fire does those things without being overkill, both on features and on your wallet.
With the Fire you aren't paying for 3G if you don't want to (pay a monthly fee for very slow internet access). You aren't paying for a bunch of storage that you don't need. You aren't paying for a camera and a microphone, which most people don't care about in a tablet. Apple packs all these features in that are little-used by most in order to maintain the high price point.
The Fire is important - either as "the tablet for the rest of us", or as the one that created a plan for a viable Android tablet: Not expensive, not requiring a cellphone contract, capable of browsing the web, capable of streaming video, capable of loading apps. The rest is just Cupertinoism and largess.
It would really be great if someone with financial muscle, like Google, could provide an easy alternative for the masses to watch streaming TV from an easy set-top box kind of platform, with decent live broadcasts.
I ran into these roadblocks before when I tried to switch. My laptop's wireless and sound didn't work along with a few other features and I got a lot of comments like "compile it yourself" or "use thiswrapper or thatwrapper" or "use wine". What if I don't feel like you should need development experience to get your PC running or keep it running...?
If you want regular people to adopt you should make it easy enough for regular people do adopt...
I am a Linux novice, and I recently installed Ubuntu and I found it refreshing that rather than give me a couple hours of headaches later, it gave me the option to download and install these items during the OS install. Previously you were constantly hitting these tripwires because it wouldn't install something that was "not free software".
Honestly, I will probably continue with Win7 for the bulk of my computing tasks because I don't want to invest a lot of time troubleshooting my home PC - "just works" appeals to me. Linux is fun to switch over to for a day or so but I always run into something that "just works" with my Win setup so.. back over I go.
I appreciate what people are doing with Ubuntu and Mint and I will keep checking. As soon as it's seamless for me, the novice, I'll switch. Until then...
Because existing android tablets are all underpowered, overpriced, or both, I think MSFT probably surmises that the #2 spot in this market is out there for the taking.
the Kindle Fire is a strong bid for #2 at the moment, but consumers aren't buying anything but iPads right now, and these other companies would be wise to bring a sub-$500 tablet to market that doesn't require a monthly service agreement.
Slashdot Mirror
"But you can opt out of this!"
(You just have to slap on your fedora and run through the Temple of Account Settings)
I can see the facebook phone now... its microphone eavesdrops on your retail transactions and catalogues your purchases. It senses other people with the facebook phone in near proximity and suggests that you may know them. It removes the bother of checking yourself in to every commercial location you pass through. When you walk by a store it alerts you to go in and check out a sale. It bleats and mooos when your Farmville farm needs attention. (I can see it now, drivers mowing down pedestrians because the chocolate milk cow needed water)
There are more Rollergirls out there than you think.
This is a good thing, from a certain point of view.
Maybe this will keep location tracking completely out of Android, and those of us who don't want our phones surreptitiously storing and reporting this information to anyone who has the aptitude to find it will be safe from that fear.
Sure, Android has the checkbox you can uncheck, but how do you really know it's off? How do we really know that an app doesn't flip it back on? How do you know malware or adware doesn't or won't capture it?
Certainly there are some benefits to having maps show you your current location, but the privacy concerns are bigger IMO
Do you think the cell network will be up and running in a SHTF situation, along with web servers along every hop to your destination? :)
Yes, it does. It doesn't require a PC but the documentation I read stated that you could load files onto it by USB. This should be enough to hack it.
There were leaked screenshots from the internal inventory system that showed massive amounts of pre-orders.
I'm not sure what the internet douchebag dictionary definition of "on sale" is, but if you can pre-order it and it's shipping today and people are being charged for it today, I think that qualifies as "on sale".
You could also look at this article from PCmag detailing 500k pre-orders in the first month, and almost 100k on the first day.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2396308,00.asp#fbid=ymQSTFdVy5d
Somebody's got a case of the Mondays!
Nobody is going to have it in their hands until tomorrow, I'm guessing it will be another week or two.
I was enjoying your post, but then my bandwidth changed. I'll have to finish reading it in a few minutes.
There hasn't been a lot of time between where they forked Android and several months ago, when you'd have expected the Fire's OS to be in a mostly completed state.
I'm guessing there will be updates that refine the platform more, especially as big as it's selling. Amazon is serious about it, so I've no doubt they will address it.
Because most people don't need a $500 device to do what they want a tablet to do. The Fire does those things without being overkill, both on features and on your wallet.
With the Fire you aren't paying for 3G if you don't want to (pay a monthly fee for very slow internet access). You aren't paying for a bunch of storage that you don't need. You aren't paying for a camera and a microphone, which most people don't care about in a tablet. Apple packs all these features in that are little-used by most in order to maintain the high price point.
The Fire is important - either as "the tablet for the rest of us", or as the one that created a plan for a viable Android tablet: Not expensive, not requiring a cellphone contract, capable of browsing the web, capable of streaming video, capable of loading apps. The rest is just Cupertinoism and largess.
In my opinion, this will all work itself out. Technology is going to evolve on its own to beat the cable companies.
The core problem is cable monopolies. Consumers can't fight back against the bandwidth cappers if government continues to say you have no choices.
It would really be great if someone with financial muscle, like Google, could provide an easy alternative for the masses to watch streaming TV from an easy set-top box kind of platform, with decent live broadcasts.
Perhaps Google plans their own set top box?
What do you see as the other problems beyond Unity?
I ran into these roadblocks before when I tried to switch. My laptop's wireless and sound didn't work along with a few other features and I got a lot of comments like "compile it yourself" or "use thiswrapper or thatwrapper" or "use wine". What if I don't feel like you should need development experience to get your PC running or keep it running...?
If you want regular people to adopt you should make it easy enough for regular people do adopt...
I agree with this.
I am a Linux novice, and I recently installed Ubuntu and I found it refreshing that rather than give me a couple hours of headaches later, it gave me the option to download and install these items during the OS install. Previously you were constantly hitting these tripwires because it wouldn't install something that was "not free software".
Honestly, I will probably continue with Win7 for the bulk of my computing tasks because I don't want to invest a lot of time troubleshooting my home PC - "just works" appeals to me. Linux is fun to switch over to for a day or so but I always run into something that "just works" with my Win setup so.. back over I go.
I appreciate what people are doing with Ubuntu and Mint and I will keep checking. As soon as it's seamless for me, the novice, I'll switch. Until then...
Out of curiousity, I just placed another order, and the delivery estimate was Nov 17-22. The one I pre-ordered on day one says Nov 16.
It will be the year of WebOS on the something-top!
After everyone had bought a case or after Apple had issued them one of zillions of free ones they were backed into giving away.
It's better than the passive-aggressive editorials (i.e., "It will be interesting to see if...") that are normally present in /. summaries.
The antenna problems with the iPhone 4 were obfuscated and blamed on the user at first, too.
Because existing android tablets are all underpowered, overpriced, or both, I think MSFT probably surmises that the #2 spot in this market is out there for the taking.
the Kindle Fire is a strong bid for #2 at the moment, but consumers aren't buying anything but iPads right now, and these other companies would be wise to bring a sub-$500 tablet to market that doesn't require a monthly service agreement.
What's WP7's market share?
Stuff that was a different form of matter last week