Well you can disagree, but the I think the point of the article is that the two Trek designers specifically brought up the similarities.
"For example, pinch to zoom—that was relatively difficult to do even as a visual effect. It's implemented brilliantly on the iPad and the iPhone."
Drexler said that to him, the iPad is "eerily similar" to the PADDs used in Star Trek. "We always felt that the classic Okuda T-bar graphic was malleable, and that you could stretch and rearrange it to suit your task, just like the iPad," he said. "The PADD never had a keyboard as part of its casing, just like the iPad. Its geometry is almost exactly the same—the corner radius, the thickness, and overall rectangular shape."
"It's uncanny to have a PADD that really works," Drexler said, unlike the non-functional props made for the TV series and later films. "The iPad is the true Star Trek dream," Drexler told Ars.
None of those things apply to, eg, the Kindle (nor other pre-iPad tablets. I've never seen an Android tablet) which has a very different form factor, different bezel/corner radius, different colors, different screen, no touch. So, take it up with the designers of the PADD if you've got a problem;-)
But the iPod doesn't come with a USB plug... (well I guess in some sense it does since the modern iDevice plugs are USB with a different connector for the device)
I haven't tried to use linux+iPod since I think the 2g oldschool iPod. Actually this was FreeBSD. It took some work then (compiling in firewire to the kernel, scsi support, etc). I'll be honest, I have no idea how hard it is today (though one friend told me easy) and I have no idea if Apple tries to actively and deliberately break support. I guess iTunes probably doesn't run under wine because of vxds?
My point, I think, remains. It's 2010 -- anybody (especially a linux user!) should be smart enough to google a product before purchasing (especially a linux user!) to make sure it works with their system. Yeah, it would be great if the iPods "just worked" with whatever oss software (and they seem to for some people?) and the interface never changed, etc...
If I can't get a no-CD patch then I won't buy a game. I like to play games on machines that don't have an optical drive way too often. I have a USB2 DVD-RW, ASUS SDRW-08D1S-U, and can connect it when necessary, but I certainly don't always carry it.
Then I applaud your stand. I don't buy as many games as I used to, and I'm more or less resigned to ever-increasing DRM, but I do appreciate people who do take a stand.
I would say that BOTH questions are worth asking: Both how do I get the pirates to pay and how many customers would I lose if I implemented DRM.
I completely agree with you. I hate intrusive/abusive/overly-limiting DRM as much as the next person. I just don't think the overall DRM situation is as bad as an extremely vocal minority on slashdot make it out to be.
Like you, I may not be thrilled at having to put in a CD to play a game, but big deal, it takes 5 seconds and is done. I HAVE in the past not bought software that I knew had extremely draconian DRM / other protections. So yeah, I agree with you, it's a question of balance.
Oh, perhaps I'm confused then... When you say "DRM" do you mean CD protection (ie, where you put in the CD to play)? I didn't think anybody referred to CD protection that way and I definitely don't think that's what meant by DRM? I've played a couple of those games (civ3/4, alpha centauri, thief, old dos tie fighter) and I don't actually remember what kind of protection any of them used (which is of course a good thing!)
Does that REALLY get in the way of your enjoyment of the game? Do you REALLY think a single consumer would not buy a game because he/she has to put the CD into the computer to play?
If that's statement you're making, then I'll respond by saying I don't think anything more than the tiniest fraction of possible customers would be dissuaded from buying a game by having to put in the CD. And I would furthermore guess htat most of those who claimed they pirated for that reason are lying.
DRM reduces the value of your product; getting rid of intrusive DRM adds value. I can't tell you how many games I've bought at full retail and then promptly downloaded a crack or no-cd patch because the DRM got in the way of me enjoying the game I just paid for.
Well since you can't list them all, can you at least give a few examples?
Interesting, so what it really boils down to for you is the fact that you don't like Apple and you're upset that Jobs didn't personally apologize for something that most people don't seem to care about? That's kind of silly. I have yet to meet an iPhone4 owner who has returned their iPhone, who cares at all about not getting an apology, or who has had reception problems. Doesn't mean they don't exist (since it's clear there IS a design flaw) but come on, you're just being ludicrous.
"the next iphone" is perhaps the biggest test. Everybody makes mistakes. They are absolutely unavoidable. You pour all the money in the world into testing, but eventually something will slip through. (and note I'm not meaning this in the way of letting Apple off the hook...it does seem as if they did NOT do adequate real world testing on the iPhone 4).
However, the real test is how one recovers. If the next iPhone has another hugely reported on flaw like the iPhone4, well in retrospect the iPhone4 might be the beginning of the end. OTOH, if the next iPhone doesn't have such a flaw and solidly fixes any antenna issues, then the iPhone4 will be remembered (or not remembered at all most likely) as a blip in the road.
So we'll see if "the same poor quality controls" are real, or if it was a fluke, etc.
Isn't that true? I don't have an iPhone4, but the Anandtech reviews certainly seemed to back up Apple's claims of what the bars meant and how they were affected by a dropping signal.
The actual mistake was made by Jobs; trying to play down if not ridicule the customers' concerns.
Agree that was a mistake. And I haven't heard anybody claim that the stupidest "hold the phone differently" jobs email was not the real deal.
Instead of apologising, offer refunds,
I think you're confused? There WAS an offer of a full refund for anybody who wasn't happy (including all cell phone company fees)... Do you know of somebody who wasn't able to return an iPhone4 for a full refund?
General quality? Maybe nothing.. I like Windows7. I have two fairly annoying nits..
1) Can't put a shortcut/icon to something that lives on a network drive on the win7 dock. 1a) Can't put a short to a folder on the dock without some acrobatics
2) No way I could figure out of easily upgrading a 2k/xp/2k3 style roaming profile to a vista/w7 style roaming profile (possibly missing something due to samba server here)
I don't get that implication at all from the however-many-G's-P post:p
They are also highly not interoperable. (Every single aspect of it: the App Store, the chargers, iTunes only running on OSX and Windows, DRMs, not supporting open formats,...)
I don't know how else to interpret "not supporting open formats" (for instance) when iDevices support mpeg, aac, mp3, etc.
In any case, I haven't bought any video media from iTunes in years, but I thought some videos were DRM-free as well. It's always seemed odd to me that Jobs specifically fought for lowered mp3 prices and against DRM, and yet Apple has really never gotten any credit for either of these things. I'm sure many would argue they only did it in response to market pressures, but who knows.
So in short, my point was that the iDevices themselves are not at all "shackled" or "not supporting open formats." True, they don't support ALL formats, but they support some open formats. The iTunes store is indeed a different story.
(and yes I'm aware that you can perfectly well cherry pick other studies that interpret numbers in a different way. Ergo, I didn't think this was a meaningful discussion nor one worth having for any reason)
2)Do you think that windows can't dual boot?
No, it can't dualboot OSX unless you're talking hackintosh. Most people don't mess around with things like that.
3)What are you doing with your notebook that you are breaking the hinges? I suggest a tough book, they will stroke your need to have nice (read)expensive things, and they will be tougher that your macbook.
Working with hardware at a small business (including laptops for people who travel for their jobs) I can say that for us the Apple hardware lasts longer. Yeah, it's a limited data set, but it beats your sample size of zero? Again, it's not worth arguing unless somebody has any industrywide statistics to add, and AFAIK those don't exist (at least publicly).
To be fair, Expose was WONDERFUL, but its currently dated with web browsers being tabbed, and the rise of dual monitor systems.
You asked an opinion question, I gave you an opinion question. I fail to see how any other opinion here has any relevance to mine... Especially since you haven't even mentioned anything better in Windows 7.
And out of curiosity, how does OSX render fonts better than Windows7?
That may be true, but movies, TV episodes, and eBooks are still lovingly shackled in DRM that prevents it from being played back using non-Apple software or hardware. Technically this is true for Apps as well (which also include various flavors of DRM), but I'll give them a pass on that since it's software for their own platform.
That's ONLY true if you buy from the App store. iPod/iPhone/iPad supports 100% standard pdf and epub in the bookreader just fine. Likewise, it supports plenty of open formats for video.
It's absolutely true that they don't generally support ogg. I guess somebody could write an ogg player app, maybe already has. But honestly, what percentage of people does that affect?
4)Name 5 things nicer about the OSX GUI than the Win7 one.
These are of course IMHO because when you're talking about what's "nicer" in a GUI, it falls into the category of de gustibus non est disputandum.
1) Better fonts / font rendering 2) Expose (Win+Tab / other window switching abilities are weak in comparison) 3) Not having stupid semi-transparent window frames 4) Spaces 5) Dock > Win7 bar (though admittedly the Win7 bar borrows a lot from the Dock)
I also do happen to like Win7... I just happen to like OSX more.
A friend of mine bought an iPod because it looked cool, and after fighting to transfer song under Linux, sworn to never buy Apple again...
Wow, so your friend is l33t enough to run linux but can't read the box, google beforehand, or google afterwards? I personally know people who have had iPods sync easily through linux. Maybe the problem is more with your friend? I know the Ubuntu-era has attracted new types of users to Linux, but that seems ludicrous.
(Every single aspect of it: the App Store, the chargers, iTunes only running on OSX and Windows, DRMs, not supporting open formats,...)
DRM? App store? Open formats? You're talking about an iPod syncing with linux, so you must be talking about music? The Apple store hasn't sold DRMed music in years. I personally have my own mp3s, iTunes bought, and Amazon bought amongst others all transferring just fine to the iPod. Furthermore, the "native" format of the iPod family is AAC. Pay particular attention to the part that says AAC is "a standardized, lossy compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format... AAC has been standardized by ISO and IEC, as part of the MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 specifications."
Do you have any examples of open source iOS programs that DON'T use a majority of Objective C code? I really haven't looked at many, but Wolfenstein comes to mind. Anyway, would love to see how it's done for a non-trivial app that isn't an opengl game.
I'm still learning Objective C / Cocoa/UIKit and while I find that Objective C I don't mind too much, I so far at least am not really appreciating the verbosity of Cocoa. I'm still using the 3.2 SDK for iPhone, but the 4.0 sdk looks like the API has some nice use of blocks which I like.
My biggest problem with iOS programming actually is that when googling solutions for things that aren't clear to me, there are TONS of posts/webpages/tutorials by people who seem to be absolute programming noobs giving terrible advice. Oftentimes I find a class / method / design pattern that's simple and EXACTLY what I want, but I had to wade through dozens of pages of junk to find it. I'm also not yet adept at navigating expertly through the Apple docs and the "proper" way of doing things isn't always apparent.
I think it probably tells you more about AT&T and tethering (or lack thereof). Of course you CAN tether now, but you have to pay through the nose.
I've had an iPhone 3gs for about a year. The most data I've used in any month has been ~850mb, with an average of around 250-300mb.
Most of the time I'm on a wifi network. Some hotels, my workplaces, home, many restaurants, etc. The 850mb was traveling through several states and using the iPhone heavily for mapping, etc.
I would think I would have trouble using 2gb of data in a month on my iPhone unless I turned off my wifi (which would be stupid to do at home and at work) and like..left yourube videos streaming.
I see. My opinion on that is, professors--like everybody else in the entire world--are human. Some are good, some are bad. Some were once good and now bad, some once cared and now don't, and some have worked hard every day of their careers to make the best classroom environment. Etc ad infinitum. I never understood why people would take classes with obviously bad professors or professors who they didnt get, etc. Do universities protect bad professors? Yes, to some extent. I had a class once with one of the preeminent Byzantine scholars around. The guy was wellpast his prime, rambled, gave confusing assignments, and had he been judged in his current state, never would have been hired. I still got a ton out of the class.
The other thing I really hate to say is, if you go to bottom of the barrel schools, what do you expect? Almost always when I've seen people on slashdot talking about how much they hated college, they went to large, generally not top of the line state schools (and yes, of course there are exceptions to this).
If you're one out of 40,000 freshman wanting to take chemistry at a generic State U, don't expect it to be much different from your chemistry class in highschool, because let's face it, you and your highschool peers are now in college. A lot of the people in those intro classes probably struggle, while for you it may be easy. Likewise for community college--community colleges are aimed at students who probably weren't ready for a traditional 4 year education. You can't expect a random county community college to pick from the same calibre professor of Harvard...and yet, the irony is, I've met a lot of community college profs who are AMAZING teachers and who work so hard to help their students.
So in short, perhaps the most important thing is, with college (again, as in everything else in life) -- you can make out of it what you will. You can coast by and take nothing but huge lecture classes where the professor doesn't know you from Adam...but I would think at almost every single 4-year college in the country there are some fantastic teachers and fantastic courses.
I had my share of courses that I loved, that I felt really opened up my eyes and I got to learn some really cool stuff. I've seen plenty of people in the exact same course do nothing but complain and put in a half-assed effort. So who's right about the reality of course?
All-in-all, I would say that in 6 years of college/grad school I can think of maybe 2 classes that I thought were horrible and got little out of (and one of those I dropped...the other I should have). 2 out of ~60 ain't too shabby imho.
What colleges are you talking about that are like that? Because (to paraphrase a famous quote) every single word you wrote, including 'and' and 'the' are utterly contrary to my experiences.
Thanks very much for your lengthy reply. You really do explain i think the strongest and best part of the android system. Really cool how you explain how updates (3rd party updates!) have made yourmphone experience so much better over the years.
Does make me wonder how much longer the frenetic pace of cell phone development will continue. Im guessing a long time!
I'm an iPhone user and have minimal experience with Android. Does HTC make any statements about how long they will upgrade certain phones?
ie, obviously the Incredible will be supported for awhile, as it's only been out, what--2 months? What about older models?
I'm assuming you're saying the iPhone is different from Android because you can root/flash some models of Android phones, regardless of official support, while with Apple it's not as simple (though people have obviously jailbroken and done many things)? Apple afterall has released iOS4 for the iPhone 3g but not the original -- so two years of support at least (even though there are mixed reports of how well iOS4 runs)
I think you're confused by something here? What you mean when you say "it's Apple bringing it back up by continuing to throw more mud on competitors instead of simply letting the issue lie."
Seems most people have been criticizing Apple for NOT acknowledging a problem early enough, and now you're claiming the opposite of that?
Secondly, the only mud-slinging Apple has done that I've seen has been 3 videos that demonstrated 3 other phones (brands/OS) had similar death grip problems. If you think that's mud-slinging, I can only conclude you haven't seen much!
Lastly, Apple really only seems to be generating ill-will amongst those who already hate them. Surprise, surprise, those who hate Apple have found reasons to hate them even more.
I absolutely do (and have!) admit that Steve Jobs personally has not handled the situation very well at. His initial email (I'm assuming it was a real one) that said in essence "don't hold the phone that way" was asinine to say the least.
However beyond that, I don't have much of a problem...i think the 30 day full refund (including AT&T contract fees / restocking fees) is STILL available and everybody who wants a free case gets one. Since with a case there's really not a problem...I guess I don't see what the problem is. Everybody in the world by now knows about the antenna bug, and in the US many people have been willing to put up with shitty phone service to get the iPhone. I had better Verizon service at my house, but decided to switch to the iPhone 3gs last year for example.
Long story short...does the iPhone 4 have a problem? Yes and no. It has a problem which affects at the very least some of the people some of the time, but is fixable now--for free--for all of the people.
The irony is that even Consumer Reports who would not recommend the iPhone 4 due to the antenna bug gave it the highest ranking (even compared to Androids) of all smartphones. ~shrug~ The great thing about the marketplace here is there's plenty of choice. Hate Steve Jobs and Apple and want to punch that smirk off his face? Get a Droid, no sweat off my back!
Ah yes, always nice to start a discussion with somebody who has a different point of view or who disagrees with "you're a troll."
Steve Jobs sold a phone that when held "normally" with one hand loses substantial signal quality.
A lot of people seem to strongly disagree with you. I'm basing this off of the Anandtech review, several friends with iPhone4s (including me personally holding an iPhone4) and the return rates as quoted by Jobs. What are you basing your statement on?
It's clear, obvious, and not denied by ANYBODY that when held certain ways, the iPhone 4 DOES lose signal. If you cover the antenna gap, the bug manifests and some amount of signal (highly variable it's worth noting). Probably more than most other phones lose when held certain ways, yes. Again, nobody--least of all myself--am denying this.
Most phones when held "normally" do not. Some phones also lose some signal quality when held in specific ways, but of course this doesn't affect most people as they don't hold their phones in those strange and unusual ways.
I think that's debatable. Anand's reviews of the iPhone4 and the Droid X (and HTC incredible) show how holding the phone naturally does lose substantial signal. Does the iPhone4 lose more signal than those two phones--yes. Anand also reports that the iPhone4 is far better at holding onto a signal with a weaker signal.
I have an iPhone 3gs. I've been self-conscious over the last couple of weeks about how I hold the 3gs, and I never end up covering that part of the phone when I talk. Doesn't mean it's not a technical flaw, but it means that should I get an iPhone4, it would be more or less irrelevant to me (doubly so since I would use a case).
Steve Jobs' "lie" as the GP puts it is claiming that this is a common problem with most handsets when it isn't. The problem being "holding the phone normally substantially affects reception."
But there's no lie there? If you go on Youtube you can find plenty of videos of phones losing signal being held in ways that look pretty normal. Jobs' demonstrated 3 in his conference. Plenty of people DO hold the iPhone normally without dropping calls, losing much signal (no more than average?), or bridging the antenna. Probably the vast majority of people since i believe the majority of iPhone users have cases anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
Well you can disagree, but the I think the point of the article is that the two Trek designers specifically brought up the similarities.
"For example, pinch to zoom—that was relatively difficult to do even as a visual effect. It's implemented brilliantly on the iPad and the iPhone."
Drexler said that to him, the iPad is "eerily similar" to the PADDs used in Star Trek. "We always felt that the classic Okuda T-bar graphic was malleable, and that you could stretch and rearrange it to suit your task, just like the iPad," he said. "The PADD never had a keyboard as part of its casing, just like the iPad. Its geometry is almost exactly the same—the corner radius, the thickness, and overall rectangular shape."
"It's uncanny to have a PADD that really works," Drexler said, unlike the non-functional props made for the TV series and later films. "The iPad is the true Star Trek dream," Drexler told Ars.
None of those things apply to, eg, the Kindle (nor other pre-iPad tablets. I've never seen an Android tablet) which has a very different form factor, different bezel/corner radius, different colors, different screen, no touch. So, take it up with the designers of the PADD if you've got a problem ;-)
But the iPod doesn't come with a USB plug... (well I guess in some sense it does since the modern iDevice plugs are USB with a different connector for the device)
I haven't tried to use linux+iPod since I think the 2g oldschool iPod. Actually this was FreeBSD. It took some work then (compiling in firewire to the kernel, scsi support, etc). I'll be honest, I have no idea how hard it is today (though one friend told me easy) and I have no idea if Apple tries to actively and deliberately break support. I guess iTunes probably doesn't run under wine because of vxds?
My point, I think, remains. It's 2010 -- anybody (especially a linux user!) should be smart enough to google a product before purchasing (especially a linux user!) to make sure it works with their system. Yeah, it would be great if the iPods "just worked" with whatever oss software (and they seem to for some people?) and the interface never changed, etc...
If I can't get a no-CD patch then I won't buy a game. I like to play games on machines that don't have an optical drive way too often. I have a USB2 DVD-RW, ASUS SDRW-08D1S-U, and can connect it when necessary, but I certainly don't always carry it.
Then I applaud your stand. I don't buy as many games as I used to, and I'm more or less resigned to ever-increasing DRM, but I do appreciate people who do take a stand.
I would say that BOTH questions are worth asking: Both how do I get the pirates to pay and how many customers would I lose if I implemented DRM.
I completely agree with you. I hate intrusive/abusive/overly-limiting DRM as much as the next person. I just don't think the overall DRM situation is as bad as an extremely vocal minority on slashdot make it out to be.
Like you, I may not be thrilled at having to put in a CD to play a game, but big deal, it takes 5 seconds and is done. I HAVE in the past not bought software that I knew had extremely draconian DRM / other protections. So yeah, I agree with you, it's a question of balance.
Oh, perhaps I'm confused then... When you say "DRM" do you mean CD protection (ie, where you put in the CD to play)? I didn't think anybody referred to CD protection that way and I definitely don't think that's what meant by DRM? I've played a couple of those games (civ3/4, alpha centauri, thief, old dos tie fighter) and I don't actually remember what kind of protection any of them used (which is of course a good thing!)
Does that REALLY get in the way of your enjoyment of the game? Do you REALLY think a single consumer would not buy a game because he/she has to put the CD into the computer to play?
If that's statement you're making, then I'll respond by saying I don't think anything more than the tiniest fraction of possible customers would be dissuaded from buying a game by having to put in the CD. And I would furthermore guess htat most of those who claimed they pirated for that reason are lying.
DRM reduces the value of your product; getting rid of intrusive DRM adds value. I can't tell you how many games I've bought at full retail and then promptly downloaded a crack or no-cd patch because the DRM got in the way of me enjoying the game I just paid for.
Well since you can't list them all, can you at least give a few examples?
Interesting, so what it really boils down to for you is the fact that you don't like Apple and you're upset that Jobs didn't personally apologize for something that most people don't seem to care about? That's kind of silly. I have yet to meet an iPhone4 owner who has returned their iPhone, who cares at all about not getting an apology, or who has had reception problems. Doesn't mean they don't exist (since it's clear there IS a design flaw) but come on, you're just being ludicrous.
"the next iphone" is perhaps the biggest test. Everybody makes mistakes. They are absolutely unavoidable. You pour all the money in the world into testing, but eventually something will slip through. (and note I'm not meaning this in the way of letting Apple off the hook...it does seem as if they did NOT do adequate real world testing on the iPhone 4).
However, the real test is how one recovers. If the next iPhone has another hugely reported on flaw like the iPhone4, well in retrospect the iPhone4 might be the beginning of the end. OTOH, if the next iPhone doesn't have such a flaw and solidly fixes any antenna issues, then the iPhone4 will be remembered (or not remembered at all most likely) as a blip in the road.
So we'll see if "the same poor quality controls" are real, or if it was a fluke, etc.
Isn't that true? I don't have an iPhone4, but the Anandtech reviews certainly seemed to back up Apple's claims of what the bars meant and how they were affected by a dropping signal.
The actual mistake was made by Jobs; trying to play down if not ridicule the customers' concerns.
Agree that was a mistake. And I haven't heard anybody claim that the stupidest "hold the phone differently" jobs email was not the real deal.
Instead of apologising, offer refunds,
I think you're confused? There WAS an offer of a full refund for anybody who wasn't happy (including all cell phone company fees)... Do you know of somebody who wasn't able to return an iPhone4 for a full refund?
General quality? Maybe nothing.. I like Windows7. I have two fairly annoying nits..
1) Can't put a shortcut/icon to something that lives on a network drive on the win7 dock.
1a) Can't put a short to a folder on the dock without some acrobatics
2) No way I could figure out of easily upgrading a 2k/xp/2k3 style roaming profile to a vista/w7 style roaming profile (possibly missing something due to samba server here)
I don't get that implication at all from the however-many-G's-P post :p
They are also highly not interoperable. (Every single aspect of it: the App Store, the chargers, iTunes only running on OSX and Windows, DRMs, not supporting open formats, ...)
I don't know how else to interpret "not supporting open formats" (for instance) when iDevices support mpeg, aac, mp3, etc.
In any case, I haven't bought any video media from iTunes in years, but I thought some videos were DRM-free as well. It's always seemed odd to me that Jobs specifically fought for lowered mp3 prices and against DRM, and yet Apple has really never gotten any credit for either of these things. I'm sure many would argue they only did it in response to market pressures, but who knows.
So in short, my point was that the iDevices themselves are not at all "shackled" or "not supporting open formats." True, they don't support ALL formats, but they support some open formats. The iTunes store is indeed a different story.
Ok, since you wanted to quibble when I picked the only part of your post that deserved a response, I'll answer the rest ;)
1) I guess that is why OSX is losing market share
Citation?
http://www.maclife.com/article/news/apples_market_share_pc_world_continues_surge
(and yes I'm aware that you can perfectly well cherry pick other studies that interpret numbers in a different way. Ergo, I didn't think this was a meaningful discussion nor one worth having for any reason)
2)Do you think that windows can't dual boot?
No, it can't dualboot OSX unless you're talking hackintosh. Most people don't mess around with things like that.
3)What are you doing with your notebook that you are breaking the hinges? I suggest a tough book, they will stroke your need to have nice (read)expensive things, and they will be tougher that your macbook.
Working with hardware at a small business (including laptops for people who travel for their jobs) I can say that for us the Apple hardware lasts longer. Yeah, it's a limited data set, but it beats your sample size of zero? Again, it's not worth arguing unless somebody has any industrywide statistics to add, and AFAIK those don't exist (at least publicly).
To be fair, Expose was WONDERFUL, but its currently dated with web browsers being tabbed, and the rise of dual monitor systems.
You asked an opinion question, I gave you an opinion question. I fail to see how any other opinion here has any relevance to mine... Especially since you haven't even mentioned anything better in Windows 7.
And out of curiosity, how does OSX render fonts better than Windows7?
I already said I prefer it.
That may be true, but movies, TV episodes, and eBooks are still lovingly shackled in DRM that prevents it from being played back using non-Apple software or hardware. Technically this is true for Apps as well (which also include various flavors of DRM), but I'll give them a pass on that since it's software for their own platform.
That's ONLY true if you buy from the App store. iPod/iPhone/iPad supports 100% standard pdf and epub in the bookreader just fine. Likewise, it supports plenty of open formats for video.
It's absolutely true that they don't generally support ogg. I guess somebody could write an ogg player app, maybe already has. But honestly, what percentage of people does that affect?
4)Name 5 things nicer about the OSX GUI than the Win7 one.
These are of course IMHO because when you're talking about what's "nicer" in a GUI, it falls into the category of de gustibus non est disputandum.
1) Better fonts / font rendering
2) Expose (Win+Tab / other window switching abilities are weak in comparison)
3) Not having stupid semi-transparent window frames
4) Spaces
5) Dock > Win7 bar (though admittedly the Win7 bar borrows a lot from the Dock)
I also do happen to like Win7... I just happen to like OSX more.
A friend of mine bought an iPod because it looked cool, and after fighting to transfer song under Linux, sworn to never buy Apple again...
Wow, so your friend is l33t enough to run linux but can't read the box, google beforehand, or google afterwards? I personally know people who have had iPods sync easily through linux. Maybe the problem is more with your friend? I know the Ubuntu-era has attracted new types of users to Linux, but that seems ludicrous.
(Every single aspect of it: the App Store, the chargers, iTunes only running on OSX and Windows, DRMs, not supporting open formats, ...)
DRM? App store? Open formats? You're talking about an iPod syncing with linux, so you must be talking about music? The Apple store hasn't sold DRMed music in years. I personally have my own mp3s, iTunes bought, and Amazon bought amongst others all transferring just fine to the iPod. Furthermore, the "native" format of the iPod family is AAC. Pay particular attention to the part that says AAC is "a standardized, lossy compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format... AAC has been standardized by ISO and IEC, as part of the MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 specifications."
So. What's the problem?
Do you have any examples of open source iOS programs that DON'T use a majority of Objective C code? I really haven't looked at many, but Wolfenstein comes to mind. Anyway, would love to see how it's done for a non-trivial app that isn't an opengl game.
I'm still learning Objective C / Cocoa/UIKit and while I find that Objective C I don't mind too much, I so far at least am not really appreciating the verbosity of Cocoa. I'm still using the 3.2 SDK for iPhone, but the 4.0 sdk looks like the API has some nice use of blocks which I like.
My biggest problem with iOS programming actually is that when googling solutions for things that aren't clear to me, there are TONS of posts/webpages/tutorials by people who seem to be absolute programming noobs giving terrible advice. Oftentimes I find a class / method / design pattern that's simple and EXACTLY what I want, but I had to wade through dozens of pages of junk to find it. I'm also not yet adept at navigating expertly through the Apple docs and the "proper" way of doing things isn't always apparent.
I think it probably tells you more about AT&T and tethering (or lack thereof). Of course you CAN tether now, but you have to pay through the nose.
I've had an iPhone 3gs for about a year. The most data I've used in any month has been ~850mb, with an average of around 250-300mb.
Most of the time I'm on a wifi network. Some hotels, my workplaces, home, many restaurants, etc. The 850mb was traveling through several states and using the iPhone heavily for mapping, etc.
I would think I would have trouble using 2gb of data in a month on my iPhone unless I turned off my wifi (which would be stupid to do at home and at work) and like..left yourube videos streaming.
I see. My opinion on that is, professors--like everybody else in the entire world--are human. Some are good, some are bad. Some were once good and now bad, some once cared and now don't, and some have worked hard every day of their careers to make the best classroom environment. Etc ad infinitum. I never understood why people would take classes with obviously bad professors or professors who they didnt get, etc. Do universities protect bad professors? Yes, to some extent. I had a class once with one of the preeminent Byzantine scholars around. The guy was wellpast his prime, rambled, gave confusing assignments, and had he been judged in his current state, never would have been hired. I still got a ton out of the class.
The other thing I really hate to say is, if you go to bottom of the barrel schools, what do you expect? Almost always when I've seen people on slashdot talking about how much they hated college, they went to large, generally not top of the line state schools (and yes, of course there are exceptions to this).
If you're one out of 40,000 freshman wanting to take chemistry at a generic State U, don't expect it to be much different from your chemistry class in highschool, because let's face it, you and your highschool peers are now in college. A lot of the people in those intro classes probably struggle, while for you it may be easy. Likewise for community college--community colleges are aimed at students who probably weren't ready for a traditional 4 year education. You can't expect a random county community college to pick from the same calibre professor of Harvard...and yet, the irony is, I've met a lot of community college profs who are AMAZING teachers and who work so hard to help their students.
So in short, perhaps the most important thing is, with college (again, as in everything else in life) -- you can make out of it what you will. You can coast by and take nothing but huge lecture classes where the professor doesn't know you from Adam...but I would think at almost every single 4-year college in the country there are some fantastic teachers and fantastic courses.
I had my share of courses that I loved, that I felt really opened up my eyes and I got to learn some really cool stuff. I've seen plenty of people in the exact same course do nothing but complain and put in a half-assed effort. So who's right about the reality of course?
All-in-all, I would say that in 6 years of college/grad school I can think of maybe 2 classes that I thought were horrible and got little out of (and one of those I dropped...the other I should have). 2 out of ~60 ain't too shabby imho.
What colleges are you talking about that are like that? Because (to paraphrase a famous quote) every single word you wrote, including 'and' and 'the' are utterly contrary to my experiences.
Thanks very much for your lengthy reply. You really do explain i think the strongest and best part of the android system. Really cool how you explain how updates (3rd party updates!) have made yourmphone experience so much better over the years.
Does make me wonder how much longer the frenetic pace of cell phone development will continue. Im guessing a long time!
Thanks !
I'm an iPhone user and have minimal experience with Android. Does HTC make any statements about how long they will upgrade certain phones?
ie, obviously the Incredible will be supported for awhile, as it's only been out, what--2 months? What about older models?
I'm assuming you're saying the iPhone is different from Android because you can root/flash some models of Android phones, regardless of official support, while with Apple it's not as simple (though people have obviously jailbroken and done many things)? Apple afterall has released iOS4 for the iPhone 3g but not the original -- so two years of support at least (even though there are mixed reports of how well iOS4 runs)
I think you're confused by something here? What you mean when you say "it's Apple bringing it back up by continuing to throw more mud on competitors instead of simply letting the issue lie."
Seems most people have been criticizing Apple for NOT acknowledging a problem early enough, and now you're claiming the opposite of that?
Secondly, the only mud-slinging Apple has done that I've seen has been 3 videos that demonstrated 3 other phones (brands/OS) had similar death grip problems. If you think that's mud-slinging, I can only conclude you haven't seen much!
Lastly, Apple really only seems to be generating ill-will amongst those who already hate them. Surprise, surprise, those who hate Apple have found reasons to hate them even more.
I absolutely do (and have!) admit that Steve Jobs personally has not handled the situation very well at. His initial email (I'm assuming it was a real one) that said in essence "don't hold the phone that way" was asinine to say the least.
However beyond that, I don't have much of a problem...i think the 30 day full refund (including AT&T contract fees / restocking fees) is STILL available and everybody who wants a free case gets one. Since with a case there's really not a problem...I guess I don't see what the problem is. Everybody in the world by now knows about the antenna bug, and in the US many people have been willing to put up with shitty phone service to get the iPhone. I had better Verizon service at my house, but decided to switch to the iPhone 3gs last year for example.
Long story short...does the iPhone 4 have a problem? Yes and no. It has a problem which affects at the very least some of the people some of the time, but is fixable now--for free--for all of the people.
The irony is that even Consumer Reports who would not recommend the iPhone 4 due to the antenna bug gave it the highest ranking (even compared to Androids) of all smartphones. ~shrug~ The great thing about the marketplace here is there's plenty of choice. Hate Steve Jobs and Apple and want to punch that smirk off his face? Get a Droid, no sweat off my back!
You're obviously being a troll but I'll bite.
Ah yes, always nice to start a discussion with somebody who has a different point of view or who disagrees with "you're a troll."
Steve Jobs sold a phone that when held "normally" with one hand loses substantial signal quality.
A lot of people seem to strongly disagree with you. I'm basing this off of the Anandtech review, several friends with iPhone4s (including me personally holding an iPhone4) and the return rates as quoted by Jobs. What are you basing your statement on?
It's clear, obvious, and not denied by ANYBODY that when held certain ways, the iPhone 4 DOES lose signal. If you cover the antenna gap, the bug manifests and some amount of signal (highly variable it's worth noting). Probably more than most other phones lose when held certain ways, yes. Again, nobody--least of all myself--am denying this.
Most phones when held "normally" do not. Some phones also lose some signal quality when held in specific ways, but of course this doesn't affect most people as they don't hold their phones in those strange and unusual ways.
I think that's debatable. Anand's reviews of the iPhone4 and the Droid X (and HTC incredible) show how holding the phone naturally does lose substantial signal. Does the iPhone4 lose more signal than those two phones--yes. Anand also reports that the iPhone4 is far better at holding onto a signal with a weaker signal.
I have an iPhone 3gs. I've been self-conscious over the last couple of weeks about how I hold the 3gs, and I never end up covering that part of the phone when I talk. Doesn't mean it's not a technical flaw, but it means that should I get an iPhone4, it would be more or less irrelevant to me (doubly so since I would use a case).
Steve Jobs' "lie" as the GP puts it is claiming that this is a common problem with most handsets when it isn't. The problem being "holding the phone normally substantially affects reception."
But there's no lie there? If you go on Youtube you can find plenty of videos of phones losing signal being held in ways that look pretty normal. Jobs' demonstrated 3 in his conference. Plenty of people DO hold the iPhone normally without dropping calls, losing much signal (no more than average?), or bridging the antenna. Probably the vast majority of people since i believe the majority of iPhone users have cases anyway.
Have you used an iPhone4?
I think they said that the tests were performed in a testing environment with low signal, though I could be wrong.