Apple are the ones who made it a war of blocking their competitors from the market instead of competing on sales. Clearly, they've lost one of the battles--even if they eventually win the legal case against Samsung, the next generation devices from both manufacturers would already be out, they might gain financially but that's not what they are after.
Apple aren't willing to compete fairly on the market, so I don't see how anything implies a 'sales battle' - a sales battle is precisely what Apple don't want.
How dare they use images of virtual models? They should go back to using heavily photoshopped images of attractive women that represent a tiny proportion of the gene pool--'realistic' but equally unattainable physical ideals for most women.
Is there a facebook page about this I can like so I can feel good about myself?
Seriously, this is like protesting the lack of fat mannequins in shop displays.
There will always be work for attractive young women, there are plenty of other real world stuff they can be used to sell, hell, they are widely used to sell virtually anything to men and women. And several research studies show that attractive people have an easier time finding work in many occupations, modelling isn't the only career where looks are an advantage.
I know plenty of women who buy clothes online, they will feel pretty insulted if they are told that they are buying clothes in the hope that they can look like the models shown wearing them. I would think they would have given up by now, surely after the first hundred items or so they would notice that the clothes they buy aren't making them look like the models on the website.
They can do A without the keep it secret part and still do B. And until the United States realizes the deep ingrained anti-America feelings across large parts of the world they will keep embarking on projects like trying to bring democracy in Afghanistan instead of getting the hell out ASAP.
The antagonism towards the U.S. runs so deep in the populations of some countries that it will take generations for views to change. And as American influence on the world fades, regimes that paid lip service in exchange for free goodies will become bolder. The failure to have any influence over Pakistan despite the massive amounts of financial and military aid sent there isn't just a safety risk, it is a huge embarrassing humiliation that emboldens corrupt dictator regimes like Iran. Obama's moderation is too little too late to make up for over half a century of screwing entire countries over. The distrust is so overwhelming that people may believe little else of what their corrupt governments and state controlled media tell them, but they will believe any criticism of the US. It's too late to do any good, it's too late to mend fences, the best way is to get the hell out of places you don't need to be in, focus on having access to resources, everything else can sort itself out. Limit the military presence and ties to countries where public opinion still actually favours the U.S. (for entirely self serving reasons of course, but whatever) - places like Australia, India, U.S, dependent oil rich middle east countries-can't do without them, NATO Europe (if it comes to war everyone knows where they stand). Israel is such a massive liability that it might be cheaper in the long run to move the entire country to a relatively empty part of the United States, someone should probably do a research study to try and quantify how much support for Israel has cost the United States.
They'll hate you for the foreseeable future. It's an unwinnable propaganda war--you can remove and replace entire evil regimes but the population will turn against you and support whoever shouts the loudest in the anti-America propaganda shouting contest. It happened in Afghanistan and Iraq, it will happen if you go anywhere near Pakistan or Iran.
I wish I could be smug just laugh at India and its stupid corrupt politicians.
Unfortunately this kind of hare brained ideas aren't limited to the third world.
In Australia the filtering plan seems to be on hold for now, but you don't even need a slippery slope argument to know how batshit insane and scary the idea of a secret internet censorship blacklist is: http://nocleanfeed.com/
Blocking sports streams when they still cannot find a way of offering pay per view streaming of major sports events over the internet, where your only way of viewing a couple of hours of sports content a week is to sign up for an expensive cable package that gives lots of stuff you will never watch and THEN purchase an extra expensive add on for the sports content. And the US government is protecting that business model by seizing domains with no legal notice or court enforced legal process.
I would love to be able to just mock India, if we could afford to be that complacent...
Google have 24x7 phone support now. It is really a futile exercise to maintain local email systems even for a few thousand users, it will be outsourced sooner or later.
The problem with all such criticism is that people have voted with their feet. They don't care about a walled garden. We can complain all we want. The truth is that computers have long been devices where it was perfectly acceptable that they often didn't do what they were supposed to. When the choice was between using a computer and not using one, most grudgingly learned to use computers. But they were never comfortable. Ever. They were things that threw up mysterious errors which made you call a 'computer guy' when you tried to print, to connect to the internet, open an attachment, click on a website link. People were scared of computers. And everyone wasted endless hours on the most pointless and mundane of tasks--reinstalling windows, managing anti virus and anti malware software, troubleshooting peripherals.
You can see the difference in the things that are so far untouched by the Apple philosophy. Home printers with their driver issues, paper jams, awful drivers and software, horrible user interfaces. Or TVs with their horrible unintuitive menus and remote controls that are basically unchanged in thirty years or more. If they work they work, but the smallest issue leaves the average user helpless. And while the average slashdot user will eventually figure out how to use them, it can still be maddening when you have to trawl through a manual to figure out a simple function.
No one of the non nerdy type ever used to be passionate about a computer. They could be passionate about things that didn't act like computers even if they were in fact interacting with an embedded computer--cars, video game consoles, digital cameras, later ipods, automatic photo printing booths, supermarket self checkouts etc. They didn't associate those things with the kind of computers that frustrated them every day. That's changed and Apple do deserve a significant amount of credit though their contribution is often overrated. Not all pre Apple ideas were awful, and they aren't the only ones innovating. The Asus transformer concept for example has huge potential. An iPad will never be a proper computing device with an awful touchscreen based text input system. Things like styluses, physical keys, small trackballs and trackpads do have their place.
But for the non power user the PC is dead. And I am not sure that is a bad thing. There doesn't seem to be a near term alternative for the PC for power use like development or photo or CAD or architectural work. So it isn't going any where. Current home computers are cheap and absurdly powerful, it would be crazy to abandon them completely hoping that all intensive computations can happen in the cloud.
Don't get me wrong, I like Asus. Asus and Samsung are the only major Android manufacturers with any sort of clue about how to take on Apple, though you do see some sparks from Sony. And the original transformer was great, it was the only Android tablet of the time to be released with a sane price tag, and it got several things right. With the Prime, they seem to have absolutely nailed the hardware. Though I really wish an Android tablet is released before the next iPad with a high pixel density display, that would be quite a coup. Only someone who makes screens can do that though, Apple would have all third party stock locked up like they did with the iPhone 4 display. That leaves LG (AH-IPS), Samsung (AMOLED, S-LCD?) and Sony (S-LCD). I would put my hopes on Samsung.
Apple have comprehensively proven that the average buyer doesn't care about tech specs like 'quad core', especially on mobile devices. And why should they, it is still going to be a while before quad core translates into any meaningful experience in user experience. By sending review samples with poorly optimized Honeycomb based software, they have given even more credence to the popular and often justified perception that Android tablets can never offer a smooth user experience. Without ICS, Asus have released an unfinished device.
Also, while Asus have come a long way from the days where their marketing department thought "Heart Touching" was a great tagline for English speaking countries, they still have a long way to go. Why is the screen called SuperIPS+, what is that supposed to convey to the average buyer? Apparently the display is the first that is bright enough to be somewhat usable in sunlight, why not come up with a name which reflects that? Isn't there someone smart enough to come up with a 30 second ad for the Prime that shows off the outdoors usable higher resolution screen, great camera, the fact that it's thinner than an iPad, ICS multitasking and a 'Google experience' tagline - it won't win over Apple diehards, but a lot of people who are on the fence and might buy an iPad thinking there's no choice would be interested. Right now calling it a Google Experience is a far better idea than marketing it as an Android tablet--the term Android tablet is associated with $100 junk from no brand Chinese junk, no one wants to pay $500 for it. Whereas most people have used and like google search, gmail, google maps, and chrome.
Although Asus is just behind Samsung among companies that are learning fast how to take on Apple, it is a really bad decision to launch this device without an upgrade to ICS 4.0. Honeycomb is never going to compete in the tablet market. Even if it has reached the point of being quite usable, there are hardly any tablet specific apps available, the iPad is so far ahead. No one outside the geeky world is going to care about quad core, especially when the software experience still lags so far behind Apple, and the iPad still has a better GPU so it can look flashier playing games. The Prime is an incredibly sleek device but it is badly let down by the software, I still don't understand how they can make an incredible device and launch it with awful software.
Google need to convince developers to make tablet apps for Android. They also need to distinguish Google Android tablets from cheap chinese junk that has really damaged Android's reputation. The slow laggy bloated bloatware infested Android phones and tablets that major manufacturers have released haven't helped either of course.
It would be a terrible failure for Google if having a two year lead over Windows 8 they still can't develop a decent tablet OS and ecosystem to take on Apple.
Even if the phone imei gets blocked before the thief manages to sell it off on eBay or gumtree (kind of like craigslist), he can still sell it off as a phone to use overseas - ebay Australia is full of those listings of phones that are basically stolen since the imei is blocked in Australia. And the larger issue is that petty theft is such a low priority for Australian police that there is virtually zero risk of getting caught. This is a classic example that is entirely consistent with my experiences: http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/ipad/thief-gets-away-with-stolen-ipad-because-police-wont-act-20110524-1f1zi.html Even when you have video footage of theft, police pay little attention to the matter, which means even repeat offenders are unlikely to get caught. I got robbed in a real estate rental property scam. While I was stupid to fall for it, I had felt safe because I made a deposit into an Australian bank account, and there are very stringent ID checks before they let you open a bank account here. I later found that the scam had been running for years. The scammer had withdrawn the money from an ATM in Australia and would have been on video, it wasn't someone overseas. The same people had scammed or tried to scam many people but had been getting away with it for years, despite video footage of different incidents, a local bank account and despite them stupidly using several stolen credit cards and ID documents in brick and mortar retailers instead of buying online.
Stealing a laptop or smartphone or iPad in Australia carries little risk unless you're caught in the process. You can even leave a nice trail because the police will never follow up. I hardly think this is much of a deterrent for thieves. Also with the massive immigrant population in major Australian cities, any self respecting thief will find it easy to simply send stolen goods overseas to be sold.
Everyone is using their huge market share to promote their products left and right. It takes a long time for laws and legal authorities to catch up to developments in technology, and by that time these monopolies are so big that they can painlessly absorb any fines and have bottomless cash reserves for a legal fight.
Google is doing that, but it is important to note that Google is no different in this respect from any other major company. It offers the only way anyone will ever compete with Facebook, and the fact it, Google is one of barely a handful of firms that have any hope of ever challenging facebook. Smaller social networks are never going to challenge Facebook, with or without Google, the best they can do is find a niche like LinkedIn did.
Facebook's privacy issues are well documented. Facebook have also been happily abusing their monopoly in the social space. They are trying to take over the world of instant messaging and email - I already have people who send me facebook messages as a substitute for email - it's not just Google. If I install the facebook app in my phone it will automatically copy all the phone numbers to my facebook account. This is a classic example: http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/22/google-android-facebook-contacts/
Facebook want to control all your social contact over the internet, and they are using their monopoly to try and extend the control to IM, email and other things. Another example is how if I share a link to a news story on facebook, the link automatically gets converted to one that forces you to add the facebook app of that media outlet before being able to open a link. And the default option for the app is that every news story you read is posted to your profile - more lovely data for facebook to build a comprehensive profile about you. In effect, facebook is redirecting links I post, if that's not worrying I don't know what is.
Apple have a lovely history of monopoly abuse too, again I don't know if this puts them on troubled legal grounds but it definitely should. A classic example is their refusal to provide an iTunes app for Android, when they quite willingly make one for Windows. Since iTunes is the sole way of acquiring a vast majority of digital content, Apple are using that monopoly to distinguish their mobile devices and operating system.
"Apple suggests Samsung to design devices that do not have a front surface that is black, do not have a shape that is rectangular or do not have rounded corners, and that the front surface should have substantial adornment as opposed to a sleek clean surface" -- None of these are brilliant distinguishing design innovations, they are obvious design decisions any tablet maker would make. These aren't technology patents, Apple is in effect asking Samsung and others to make funcitonally compromised designs just to make them look different.
In an ideal world, compatibility would be enforced. If Apple are running a digital downloads store that has market dominance they would be obliged to make it available on different platforms. Google+ and Facebook would be obliged to let people add Facebook contacts on google and google contacts on facebook, so the social networks are forced to distinguish themselves based on features, not on which one is already too entrenched to compete with.
Microsoft's continuing monopoly abuse is incredible, after the anti trust rulings. I am still amazed that it is impossible to buy a laptop without windows being loaded on it and without paying a few dollars to Microsoft. Also, retail versions of Windows cost far more, so in effect if you think
"Slashdot is the worst implementation of moderation except all the others that have been tried."
Personally, there are things I would tinker with. Google's idea seems interesting. I don't like the fact that mod points expire so soon, I would like to have them when I have the time to read through comments at 0 or even -1. I don't know what the algorithm is but positive votes should have much more weight than negative votes. If a minority vote something interesting or insightful it's worth reading, even if a majority has modded it down. Pure flamebait or trolling would get no positive votes at all.
Subtle humour or sarcasm often gets modded down.
There is too much twitch moderation - skimming a comment for a couple of seconds and modding based on that.
People who do more modding down than modding up shouldn't get points (I don't know if this already happens).
There needs to be a forking system, so that interesting discussions can persist, not disappear off the page.
All that being said, slashdot is the only website I have ever seen where I want to read comments. It still baffles me how news websites for example provide a platform for utter stupidity just below a quality article.
You just described a last resort scenario. So out of all the system admins in the world a phone with a physical keyboard is suitable only for those who would buy a phone that is inferior to alternatives in every other way, just so they can solve a problem by SSH that is complex enough for someone to call them about but not too complex to solve over a tiny phone screen. Great target market there, I see a boom in them keyboard phones coming!
Phone companies ship non slider phones not because they want fewer moving parts but because they know what the iPhone and Android did to the Blackberry and the N900 and N97 and E71/72 etc. Right now you can get a couple of keyboard phones but they are a dying breed, and don't receive cutting edge hardware or design. They might trundle on in that form..
I'll take a laptop on a holiday if I plan to SSH. I always take one anyway, don't see how I could survive with a phone as my sole computing device.
A tablet with a slim sliding keyboard makes way more sense for all the things you mention - Asus have the right idea but need a better product.
You still take way longer to type anything on any kind phone than a full keyboard. Phones are for consuming content and convenience. Typing on a phone will ALWAYS suck. I wouldn't use a phone in a cafe. If I sit down and have more than five minutes and want to do something productive I never want to use a phone because it's tiny and clumsy and inefficient.
Sorry, I wasn't clear, I meant it might kill Google Android on tablets. Amazon forked Android a while ago, at 2.2 or 2.3 I don't remember which. I think will only run Android 2.x apps, not Honeycomb or ICS specific apps. I don't know whether Amazon will choose it incorporate the ICS source code or continue improving their forked code. The Fire is already selling like no android tablet ever has. There are still very few tablet specific apps for Android, and future developers may have to choose whether to develop for ICS or Kindle. And Kindle owners will be more likely to pay for their apps whereas Android tablet owners will pirate them, as so many people already do for Android mobile apps.
For people who want to do more and pay more for their tablets, the iPad is still more attractive. And Windows 8 will come with a huge advantage called Windows. People considering the tablet for doing stuff they used to do on a windows computer will automatically be drawn to it, despite the fact that ARM Windows 8 tablets won't run x86/x64 windows applications. Microsoft don't have to make the best tablet OS to be successful, just something decent. Show people a functional version of Microsoft Office, and familiar stuff like Paint and they will think it's awesome, even if there are better office and drawing apps available on Android.
How clever, you removed the part that actually explains why I suggested a tablet: "AND want screen real estate while typing".
You got modded up despite the personal insult by selectively quoting me and misrepresentation. Impressive, you should consider taking part in the republican primaries.
It's ludicrous to complain about limited screen real estate on a 4" phone while typing, if you care that much about screen real estate WTF are you doing using a 4" screen?
I think the Galaxy Note is the perfect compromise for typing and portability and I consider it a tablet.
You can get 720p phones from LG and HTC and others too and those screens look incredible.
Register on swype.com to get am email link to download the latest apk, quicker than trying to find a link to the latest version through google.
There are some narrow scenarios where physical keyboards are better, as you said if you are switching languages every minute, it would be useful, or for touch typing.
The number of people who care about those scenarios though is very small. And even among them most would prefer having a larger screen and slimmer phone over something bulky with a physical keyboard.
You can edit in the normal view, but it is quicker to first type everything and then switch to the edit view to correct typos.
D-pad like things are unrelated to physical keyboards. The HTC Desire had an optical trackpad and the Nexus One had a trackball iirc but I don't know if any current phones without physical keyboards have one, you'll have to find out.
I don't see how it's a huge hassle to have to tap non dictionary words in once, unless you are making up words all the time?? And it doesn't take five seconds..
You haven't used a recent version of Swype or other similar keyboard apps, maybe you tried an early beta.
Swype automatically adds words to the dictionary, you only have to tap non dictionary words the first time. It remembers words you enter. Including acronyms.
Where exactly do you look while you are typing on a laptop? At the ceiling?
How exactly do you position your cursor without using a finger? some kind of telepathic method only found in phones with physical keyboards?
Swype has an excellent view for editing with cursor keys etc.
Use Swype, either the latest beta or even better on a phone that comes with it preinstalled (all samsung phones for example) with an open mind if oyu actually want to make a fair comment instead of posting lies like "enter a new word into the dictionary every time I use it".
Now we are into the incredible minority who want to touch type on a phone. I used a blackberry bold for over a year but couldn't touch type, I didn't specifically try to learn as I wasn't interested.
But how many people consider it essential to touch type on a phone and are willing to practice for months to be able to do that (and if you have to change phones, the keyboard is a different size and keys may be a different shape so you have to learn all over again).
Want to type while walking around? Use voice recognition. plain vanilla or with Siri.
It's like the CRT vs LCD debate. For a long time some people I know made a case for how CRTs were better in a way the overwhelming majority wouldn't care about, hoarded Sony Trinitron desktop monitors. they all use LCDs now.
Slashdot Mirror
It's a perfectly cromulent title.
Apple are the ones who made it a war of blocking their competitors from the market instead of competing on sales. Clearly, they've lost one of the battles--even if they eventually win the legal case against Samsung, the next generation devices from both manufacturers would already be out, they might gain financially but that's not what they are after.
Apple aren't willing to compete fairly on the market, so I don't see how anything implies a 'sales battle' - a sales battle is precisely what Apple don't want.
How dare they use images of virtual models? They should go back to using heavily photoshopped images of attractive women that represent a tiny proportion of the gene pool--'realistic' but equally unattainable physical ideals for most women.
Is there a facebook page about this I can like so I can feel good about myself?
Seriously, this is like protesting the lack of fat mannequins in shop displays.
There will always be work for attractive young women, there are plenty of other real world stuff they can be used to sell, hell, they are widely used to sell virtually anything to men and women. And several research studies show that attractive people have an easier time finding work in many occupations, modelling isn't the only career where looks are an advantage.
I know plenty of women who buy clothes online, they will feel pretty insulted if they are told that they are buying clothes in the hope that they can look like the models shown wearing them. I would think they would have given up by now, surely after the first hundred items or so they would notice that the clothes they buy aren't making them look like the models on the website.
Yes. Real Mature. Just like: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/19/AR2007041900962.html
They can do A without the keep it secret part and still do B. And until the United States realizes the deep ingrained anti-America feelings across large parts of the world they will keep embarking on projects like trying to bring democracy in Afghanistan instead of getting the hell out ASAP.
The antagonism towards the U.S. runs so deep in the populations of some countries that it will take generations for views to change. And as American influence on the world fades, regimes that paid lip service in exchange for free goodies will become bolder. The failure to have any influence over Pakistan despite the massive amounts of financial and military aid sent there isn't just a safety risk, it is a huge embarrassing humiliation that emboldens corrupt dictator regimes like Iran. Obama's moderation is too little too late to make up for over half a century of screwing entire countries over. The distrust is so overwhelming that people may believe little else of what their corrupt governments and state controlled media tell them, but they will believe any criticism of the US. It's too late to do any good, it's too late to mend fences, the best way is to get the hell out of places you don't need to be in, focus on having access to resources, everything else can sort itself out. Limit the military presence and ties to countries where public opinion still actually favours the U.S. (for entirely self serving reasons of course, but whatever) - places like Australia, India, U.S, dependent oil rich middle east countries-can't do without them, NATO Europe (if it comes to war everyone knows where they stand). Israel is such a massive liability that it might be cheaper in the long run to move the entire country to a relatively empty part of the United States, someone should probably do a research study to try and quantify how much support for Israel has cost the United States.
They'll hate you for the foreseeable future. It's an unwinnable propaganda war--you can remove and replace entire evil regimes but the population will turn against you and support whoever shouts the loudest in the anti-America propaganda shouting contest. It happened in Afghanistan and Iraq, it will happen if you go anywhere near Pakistan or Iran.
I wish I could be smug just laugh at India and its stupid corrupt politicians.
Unfortunately this kind of hare brained ideas aren't limited to the third world.
In Australia the filtering plan seems to be on hold for now, but you don't even need a slippery slope argument to know how batshit insane and scary the idea of a secret internet censorship blacklist is: http://nocleanfeed.com/
Or have we already forgotten the UK plan to censor social media during times of social unrest: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/blog/2011/aug/11/uk-riots-day-five-aftermath-live#block-33
Think of how easily that could be used in the style of the Arab governments to cripple organised protests against the government.
Or we can mock India for wanting to intercept and read Blackberry messages, and ignore the implications of legislation like the Patriot Act: http://politics.slashdot.org/story/11/12/02/1923207/patriot-act-clouds-picture-for-tech
Or have we forgotten the domain seizures to try to block pirated content with no due legal process: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/07/domain-seizures-defended/
Even extending to attempts to block a Firefox add on: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20060636-281.html
Blocking sports streams when they still cannot find a way of offering pay per view streaming of major sports events over the internet, where your only way of viewing a couple of hours of sports content a week is to sign up for an expensive cable package that gives lots of stuff you will never watch and THEN purchase an extra expensive add on for the sports content. And the US government is protecting that business model by seizing domains with no legal notice or court enforced legal process.
I would love to be able to just mock India, if we could afford to be that complacent...
Google have 24x7 phone support now. It is really a futile exercise to maintain local email systems even for a few thousand users, it will be outsourced sooner or later.
The problem with all such criticism is that people have voted with their feet. They don't care about a walled garden. We can complain all we want. The truth is that computers have long been devices where it was perfectly acceptable that they often didn't do what they were supposed to. When the choice was between using a computer and not using one, most grudgingly learned to use computers. But they were never comfortable. Ever. They were things that threw up mysterious errors which made you call a 'computer guy' when you tried to print, to connect to the internet, open an attachment, click on a website link. People were scared of computers. And everyone wasted endless hours on the most pointless and mundane of tasks--reinstalling windows, managing anti virus and anti malware software, troubleshooting peripherals.
You can see the difference in the things that are so far untouched by the Apple philosophy. Home printers with their driver issues, paper jams, awful drivers and software, horrible user interfaces. Or TVs with their horrible unintuitive menus and remote controls that are basically unchanged in thirty years or more. If they work they work, but the smallest issue leaves the average user helpless. And while the average slashdot user will eventually figure out how to use them, it can still be maddening when you have to trawl through a manual to figure out a simple function.
No one of the non nerdy type ever used to be passionate about a computer. They could be passionate about things that didn't act like computers even if they were in fact interacting with an embedded computer--cars, video game consoles, digital cameras, later ipods, automatic photo printing booths, supermarket self checkouts etc. They didn't associate those things with the kind of computers that frustrated them every day. That's changed and Apple do deserve a significant amount of credit though their contribution is often overrated. Not all pre Apple ideas were awful, and they aren't the only ones innovating. The Asus transformer concept for example has huge potential. An iPad will never be a proper computing device with an awful touchscreen based text input system. Things like styluses, physical keys, small trackballs and trackpads do have their place.
But for the non power user the PC is dead. And I am not sure that is a bad thing. There doesn't seem to be a near term alternative for the PC for power use like development or photo or CAD or architectural work. So it isn't going any where. Current home computers are cheap and absurdly powerful, it would be crazy to abandon them completely hoping that all intensive computations can happen in the cloud.
Don't get me wrong, I like Asus. Asus and Samsung are the only major Android manufacturers with any sort of clue about how to take on Apple, though you do see some sparks from Sony. And the original transformer was great, it was the only Android tablet of the time to be released with a sane price tag, and it got several things right. With the Prime, they seem to have absolutely nailed the hardware. Though I really wish an Android tablet is released before the next iPad with a high pixel density display, that would be quite a coup. Only someone who makes screens can do that though, Apple would have all third party stock locked up like they did with the iPhone 4 display. That leaves LG (AH-IPS), Samsung (AMOLED, S-LCD?) and Sony (S-LCD). I would put my hopes on Samsung.
Apple have comprehensively proven that the average buyer doesn't care about tech specs like 'quad core', especially on mobile devices. And why should they, it is still going to be a while before quad core translates into any meaningful experience in user experience. By sending review samples with poorly optimized Honeycomb based software, they have given even more credence to the popular and often justified perception that Android tablets can never offer a smooth user experience. Without ICS, Asus have released an unfinished device.
Also, while Asus have come a long way from the days where their marketing department thought "Heart Touching" was a great tagline for English speaking countries, they still have a long way to go. Why is the screen called SuperIPS+, what is that supposed to convey to the average buyer? Apparently the display is the first that is bright enough to be somewhat usable in sunlight, why not come up with a name which reflects that? Isn't there someone smart enough to come up with a 30 second ad for the Prime that shows off the outdoors usable higher resolution screen, great camera, the fact that it's thinner than an iPad, ICS multitasking and a 'Google experience' tagline - it won't win over Apple diehards, but a lot of people who are on the fence and might buy an iPad thinking there's no choice would be interested. Right now calling it a Google Experience is a far better idea than marketing it as an Android tablet--the term Android tablet is associated with $100 junk from no brand Chinese junk, no one wants to pay $500 for it. Whereas most people have used and like google search, gmail, google maps, and chrome.
Although Asus is just behind Samsung among companies that are learning fast how to take on Apple, it is a really bad decision to launch this device without an upgrade to ICS 4.0. Honeycomb is never going to compete in the tablet market. Even if it has reached the point of being quite usable, there are hardly any tablet specific apps available, the iPad is so far ahead. No one outside the geeky world is going to care about quad core, especially when the software experience still lags so far behind Apple, and the iPad still has a better GPU so it can look flashier playing games. The Prime is an incredibly sleek device but it is badly let down by the software, I still don't understand how they can make an incredible device and launch it with awful software.
Google need to convince developers to make tablet apps for Android. They also need to distinguish Google Android tablets from cheap chinese junk that has really damaged Android's reputation. The slow laggy bloated bloatware infested Android phones and tablets that major manufacturers have released haven't helped either of course.
It would be a terrible failure for Google if having a two year lead over Windows 8 they still can't develop a decent tablet OS and ecosystem to take on Apple.
Even if the phone imei gets blocked before the thief manages to sell it off on eBay or gumtree (kind of like craigslist), he can still sell it off as a phone to use overseas - ebay Australia is full of those listings of phones that are basically stolen since the imei is blocked in Australia. And the larger issue is that petty theft is such a low priority for Australian police that there is virtually zero risk of getting caught.
This is a classic example that is entirely consistent with my experiences: http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/ipad/thief-gets-away-with-stolen-ipad-because-police-wont-act-20110524-1f1zi.html
Even when you have video footage of theft, police pay little attention to the matter, which means even repeat offenders are unlikely to get caught.
I got robbed in a real estate rental property scam. While I was stupid to fall for it, I had felt safe because I made a deposit into an Australian bank account, and there are very stringent ID checks before they let you open a bank account here. I later found that the scam had been running for years. The scammer had withdrawn the money from an ATM in Australia and would have been on video, it wasn't someone overseas. The same people had scammed or tried to scam many people but had been getting away with it for years, despite video footage of different incidents, a local bank account and despite them stupidly using several stolen credit cards and ID documents in brick and mortar retailers instead of buying online.
Stealing a laptop or smartphone or iPad in Australia carries little risk unless you're caught in the process. You can even leave a nice trail because the police will never follow up. I hardly think this is much of a deterrent for thieves. Also with the massive immigrant population in major Australian cities, any self respecting thief will find it easy to simply send stolen goods overseas to be sold.
Everyone is using their huge market share to promote their products left and right. It takes a long time for laws and legal authorities to catch up to developments in technology, and by that time these monopolies are so big that they can painlessly absorb any fines and have bottomless cash reserves for a legal fight.
Google is doing that, but it is important to note that Google is no different in this respect from any other major company. It offers the only way anyone will ever compete with Facebook, and the fact it, Google is one of barely a handful of firms that have any hope of ever challenging facebook. Smaller social networks are never going to challenge Facebook, with or without Google, the best they can do is find a niche like LinkedIn did.
Facebook's privacy issues are well documented. Facebook have also been happily abusing their monopoly in the social space. They are trying to take over the world of instant messaging and email - I already have people who send me facebook messages as a substitute for email - it's not just Google. If I install the facebook app in my phone it will automatically copy all the phone numbers to my facebook account. This is a classic example: http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/22/google-android-facebook-contacts/
Facebook want to control all your social contact over the internet, and they are using their monopoly to try and extend the control to IM, email and other things. Another example is how if I share a link to a news story on facebook, the link automatically gets converted to one that forces you to add the facebook app of that media outlet before being able to open a link. And the default option for the app is that every news story you read is posted to your profile - more lovely data for facebook to build a comprehensive profile about you. In effect, facebook is redirecting links I post, if that's not worrying I don't know what is.
Apple have a lovely history of monopoly abuse too, again I don't know if this puts them on troubled legal grounds but it definitely should. A classic example is their refusal to provide an iTunes app for Android, when they quite willingly make one for Windows. Since iTunes is the sole way of acquiring a vast majority of digital content, Apple are using that monopoly to distinguish their mobile devices and operating system.
Apple are also trying to use design patents, not utility patents to force other tablet makers to make tablets that are functionally or ergonomically inferior: http://www.slashgear.com/apple-made-to-specify-design-alternatives-for-samsung-02199756/
"Apple suggests Samsung to design devices that do not have a front surface that is black, do not have a shape that is rectangular or do not have rounded corners, and that the front surface should have substantial adornment as opposed to a sleek clean surface" -- None of these are brilliant distinguishing design innovations, they are obvious design decisions any tablet maker would make. These aren't technology patents, Apple is in effect asking Samsung and others to make funcitonally compromised designs just to make them look different.
In an ideal world, compatibility would be enforced. If Apple are running a digital downloads store that has market dominance they would be obliged to make it available on different platforms. Google+ and Facebook would be obliged to let people add Facebook contacts on google and google contacts on facebook, so the social networks are forced to distinguish themselves based on features, not on which one is already too entrenched to compete with.
Microsoft's continuing monopoly abuse is incredible, after the anti trust rulings. I am still amazed that it is impossible to buy a laptop without windows being loaded on it and without paying a few dollars to Microsoft. Also, retail versions of Windows cost far more, so in effect if you think
"Slashdot is the worst implementation of moderation except all the others that have been tried."
Personally, there are things I would tinker with. Google's idea seems interesting. I don't like the fact that mod points expire so soon, I would like to have them when I have the time to read through comments at 0 or even -1. I don't know what the algorithm is but positive votes should have much more weight than negative votes. If a minority vote something interesting or insightful it's worth reading, even if a majority has modded it down. Pure flamebait or trolling would get no positive votes at all.
Subtle humour or sarcasm often gets modded down.
There is too much twitch moderation - skimming a comment for a couple of seconds and modding based on that.
People who do more modding down than modding up shouldn't get points (I don't know if this already happens).
There needs to be a forking system, so that interesting discussions can persist, not disappear off the page.
All that being said, slashdot is the only website I have ever seen where I want to read comments. It still baffles me how news websites for example provide a platform for utter stupidity just below a quality article.
You just described a last resort scenario. So out of all the system admins in the world a phone with a physical keyboard is suitable only for those who would buy a phone that is inferior to alternatives in every other way, just so they can solve a problem by SSH that is complex enough for someone to call them about but not too complex to solve over a tiny phone screen. Great target market there, I see a boom in them keyboard phones coming!
Phone companies ship non slider phones not because they want fewer moving parts but because they know what the iPhone and Android did to the Blackberry and the N900 and N97 and E71/72 etc. Right now you can get a couple of keyboard phones but they are a dying breed, and don't receive cutting edge hardware or design. They might trundle on in that form..
I'll take a laptop on a holiday if I plan to SSH. I always take one anyway, don't see how I could survive with a phone as my sole computing device.
A tablet with a slim sliding keyboard makes way more sense for all the things you mention - Asus have the right idea but need a better product.
You still take way longer to type anything on any kind phone than a full keyboard. Phones are for consuming content and convenience. Typing on a phone will ALWAYS suck. I wouldn't use a phone in a cafe. If I sit down and have more than five minutes and want to do something productive I never want to use a phone because it's tiny and clumsy and inefficient.
Sorry, I wasn't clear, I meant it might kill Google Android on tablets. Amazon forked Android a while ago, at 2.2 or 2.3 I don't remember which. I think will only run Android 2.x apps, not Honeycomb or ICS specific apps. I don't know whether Amazon will choose it incorporate the ICS source code or continue improving their forked code. The Fire is already selling like no android tablet ever has. There are still very few tablet specific apps for Android, and future developers may have to choose whether to develop for ICS or Kindle. And Kindle owners will be more likely to pay for their apps whereas Android tablet owners will pirate them, as so many people already do for Android mobile apps.
For people who want to do more and pay more for their tablets, the iPad is still more attractive. And Windows 8 will come with a huge advantage called Windows. People considering the tablet for doing stuff they used to do on a windows computer will automatically be drawn to it, despite the fact that ARM Windows 8 tablets won't run x86/x64 windows applications. Microsoft don't have to make the best tablet OS to be successful, just something decent. Show people a functional version of Microsoft Office, and familiar stuff like Paint and they will think it's awesome, even if there are better office and drawing apps available on Android.
How clever, you removed the part that actually explains why I suggested a tablet: "AND want screen real estate while typing".
You got modded up despite the personal insult by selectively quoting me and misrepresentation. Impressive, you should consider taking part in the republican primaries.
It's ludicrous to complain about limited screen real estate on a 4" phone while typing, if you care that much about screen real estate WTF are you doing using a 4" screen?
I think the Galaxy Note is the perfect compromise for typing and portability and I consider it a tablet.
You can get 720p phones from LG and HTC and others too and those screens look incredible.
Register on swype.com to get am email link to download the latest apk, quicker than trying to find a link to the latest version through google.
There are some narrow scenarios where physical keyboards are better, as you said if you are switching languages every minute, it would be useful, or for touch typing.
The number of people who care about those scenarios though is very small. And even among them most would prefer having a larger screen and slimmer phone over something bulky with a physical keyboard.
You can edit in the normal view, but it is quicker to first type everything and then switch to the edit view to correct typos.
D-pad like things are unrelated to physical keyboards. The HTC Desire had an optical trackpad and the Nexus One had a trackball iirc but I don't know if any current phones without physical keyboards have one, you'll have to find out.
I don't see how it's a huge hassle to have to tap non dictionary words in once, unless you are making up words all the time?? And it doesn't take five seconds..
You seriously recommend a mobile phone for typing a lot, for doing actual work? Idiot.
Why would ANYONE want to ssh from a phone unless they have no choice?
If I had a work issue I would stop somewhere whip out a laptop and use that to ssh. You cannot do real work on any phone.
- Swype automatically adds words to dictionary, only have to tap them in once.
- Swype edit screen with arrow keys etc you can reach with one swipe: http://media.photobucket.com/image/swype%20edit%20screen/syntax_photos/SwypeEdit.png
It takes less than half the screen in portrait mode in 800x480: http://cdn-static.cnet.co.uk/i/c/blg/cat/mobiles/samsunggalaxys2/swype.jpg
Takes up even less in bigger screen/resolution phones.
You shouldn't be using phones for real work except in an emergency. And in those situations touchscreen with Swype is fine.
You haven't used a recent version of Swype or other similar keyboard apps, maybe you tried an early beta.
Swype automatically adds words to the dictionary, you only have to tap non dictionary words the first time. It remembers words you enter. Including acronyms.
Where exactly do you look while you are typing on a laptop? At the ceiling?
How exactly do you position your cursor without using a finger? some kind of telepathic method only found in phones with physical keyboards?
Swype has an excellent view for editing with cursor keys etc.
Use Swype, either the latest beta or even better on a phone that comes with it preinstalled (all samsung phones for example) with an open mind if oyu actually want to make a fair comment instead of posting lies like "enter a new word into the dictionary every time I use it".
Switching languages on the fly is also very easy on Swype: http://beta.swype.com/#implang
See my post above about the Galaxy Note and swype: http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2548386&cid=38199868
tl;dr: Galaxy Note fits in non hipster pants pockets and swype isn't tap based so your criticism doesn't apply.
The post is actually a great example of why we should be able to mod posts both funny and insightful.
Now we are into the incredible minority who want to touch type on a phone. I used a blackberry bold for over a year but couldn't touch type, I didn't specifically try to learn as I wasn't interested.
But how many people consider it essential to touch type on a phone and are willing to practice for months to be able to do that (and if you have to change phones, the keyboard is a different size and keys may be a different shape so you have to learn all over again).
Want to type while walking around? Use voice recognition. plain vanilla or with Siri.
It's like the CRT vs LCD debate. For a long time some people I know made a case for how CRTs were better in a way the overwhelming majority wouldn't care about, hoarded Sony Trinitron desktop monitors. they all use LCDs now.