With the tremendous amount of physical real estate that the button takes up, there's no reason why splitting it into two would make things worse for virtually any user.
I take it you've never done phone support, then. In my opinion, the second mouse button is one of the single worst physical interfaces ever invented for computers. Your main input device has two unlabelled buttons which can only be discerned by whether they are on the right or on the left of the device? This is just stupid. An astonishing number of people aren't even capable of reliably telling you which side right is, and which side left is (as I find out time and time again when telling somebody where to drive - "to the right. no, the other right").
Not to mention the bad influence the right mouse button has on UI design.
I've been using the two-button "right click" for nearly a year now and do it instinctively, but still think that a right button would be significantly more effective, and less limiting (I do occasionally need right-click+drag, or right-click+very very quick move)
Yes, as I've said, it would be, but it would still make it worse for the majority of all users.
The Mighty Mouse does not have "extra buttons." By default, it works just like the "old" one-button Apple mouse.
Also, if you think the one-button mouse is about "impressing human eyes," you are mistaken. I'm not going to repeat the reasons why the one-button mouse is a good idea, but as a Windows developer, it's painfully obvious to me that the one-button mouse forces developers to create better interfaces.
Not many people these days are touch-typists and I think those of us that are, have higher standards of what constitutes "good" than those that don't.
Everyone I know learns how to type in school. Some people like the MB keyboard, some like the MBP keyboard, some like neither. I don't think it has anything to do with skill, it's just personal preference. I haven't used the MBs extensively, but when I have used them, I had no problem with them. My main notebook is a MBP, and I don't particularly like or dislike the keyboard. It works well enough for me.
My main issue with the new Apple keyboard is that it's impossible to make it "flat." It's always tilted towards the user. I immensely dislike this, as I prefer flat keyboards.
Just shut up about it already. People will use the term SKU in a lot of/. articles about consoles, and I don't want to scroll through this discussion each time. I've seent it about a dozen times in the last month. That's enough. For the rest of the year.
Apple sold 240'000 within 2 days. There are obviously more PSPs out there than iPhones as of now, but I have no doubt that Apple will reach its goal of selling 10 million by the end of '08.
The "emulation" part is not newsworthy by itself. The "for iPhone" part is what makes it newsworthy. This is one of the first non-web useful iPhone apps.
Downloadable Content like demos, small games, updates and enhancements for existing games, and movies and trailers.
There's definitely a point, even if it's not always to the customer's advantage (such as with the new ability of fixing bugs after a game is shipped - seems lots of console games have started shipping with bugs recently).
One question that came from the audience wondered why Apple doesn't participate in the "Intel Inside" program, in which PC manufacturers affix the well-known labels to their computers.
"We like our own stickers better," Jobs said. "Don't get me wrong. We love working with Intel. We're proud to ship Intel products in Macs. They're screamers, and combined with our OS, we've tuned them well. It's just that everyone knows we use Intel processors. We'd rather not tell them about the product that's inside the box."
The best part, of course, is that the only time Jobs uses these crappy styles in his Keynote presentations is when the shows them off. Apple knows perfectly well about Tufte, but some of their customers are used to WordArt and might think Apple's stuff is inferior if they can't do the same ugly crap in the iWorks apps.
I sympathize for your issue with the second button, but I don't think fixing it is worth making the experience worse for everyone who doesn't need that specific use case. Clicking left-left+right-lift while dragging seems... pathological:-)
Yeah. I have a Macbook pro, almost a $3000 computer; and the keyboard is terrible.
Uhm. You're talking about different keyboards. The MacBook Pro has a "normal" notebook keyboard, while the MacBook (without Pro) has the "new style" keyboard, which is very similar to the one being used in this new Apple keyboard, from the looks of it.
Yes or No: Can you use ANY MP3 file you want as a ringtone on your iPhone, or not?
I'm not sure whether you read what I wrote. I already answered this. The iPhone currently comes with a set of predefined ringtones. You can't add any, either by buying them or by adding them yourself, without using a hack.
If the answer is no, that you have to buy special ring tones from iTunes
Again, you can not change the ring tones at all. You can't "buy special ring tones from iTunes."
Until you can, you have no point. Apple obviously left out a lot of features to get the first version of the iPhone out. We simply don't know whether we'll be able to set our own music as ringtones, or whether we'll have to buy them from Apple.
The rest of your argument (PocketPC is fundamentally better because you can install apps, and iPAQ is better because it has GPS) has nothing to do with the point you're trying to disprove, so I'll just take the liberty of ignoring it.
Interesting movie. I have to wonder, though: If the speed limit was increased, would people simply drive at (new speed limit) + 20, and the whole thing would be exactly as it was, except at a faster speed?
I'm not convinced you've got category 3 quite right. It seems to me that alcohol would be more of a 2.5, while some of those others might range more up towards 3.5. Or do you have evidence to the contrary (that alcohol actually is as dangerous as opium or cocaine)?
Yeah, I actually do have evidence: the drunks hanging around at my train station. Never seen an opium addict get so violent (actually, I've never seen an opium addict at all), and the coke addicts usually lead normal lives.
I don't think it's the modchip seller's task to make sure his customers respect the law. How do you propose this should work?
It's not the gun seller's task to ensure his customers don't kill anyone. It's not the Internet provider's task to ensure his customers don't download pirated apps. It's not the car seller's task to ensure his customers aren't driving recklessly. We have the police and a judicial system for that.
If you use a mod chip to pirate video games, that's the same as downloading a game (that is still in print) for free over the internet. You are stealing. You can call it what you like, but you are obtaining a game for free, or in this case, for the cost of a mod chip. It's not just about modifying your hardware, it's about modifying your hardware to pirate games.
So you're basically saying that using a mod chip to pirating game is the same as downloading a commercial game over the Internet. Obviously, a huge percentage of all Internet connections are used to download stuff illegally. If Mod chips should be illegal, then so should Internet connections.
In the meantime, we still don't have Super Paper Mario and Second Opinion for the Wii in Europe. Many Japanese games don't appear over here, ever. I'm willing to give you my money, and I can't, because the Wii is not region-free. Why in the world should it be illegal to install a mod chip in my Wii which allows me to buy your games?
Oh come on, that's bullshit and you know it. The iPhone is absolutely targeted at and designed for the needs (or whims) of carriers, specifically AT&T, at the (extreme) expense of the user.
There are a lot of things that Apple did for AT&T, but it's definitely more aimed at users than other phones.
Are you claiming that end users do not want the ability to use free MP3 or $0.99 iTunes songs as ring tones, and would rather buy and use $6.99 ring tones from the carrier instead?
Since they can do neither, discussing this is somewhat moot at this point.
Or will you admit that maybe the phone is locked up specifically to make that impossible, because of the carrier's desire to make money, not because of the needs of the user? Or are you so brainwashed by Steve Job's reality distortion field that you can't see that fact?
Dude, you can't buy ringtones for the iPhone. And once you can, it won't be from AT&T, but from Apple's iTunes Store. Not sure who's the one who's brainwashed here.
Dude, gp was in reply to people saying that buying an OpenMoko is a better idea than buying an iPhone. For most people, it's not, as the site states. How is quoting a product's web site "denouncing" the product?
Of course Apple isn't a club or religion. That doesn't mean that making a phone which is targeted at end users rather than at carriers isn't at least a tiny bit revolutionary - not to mention that it's the first consumer-level device that comes with a multitouch screen:-)
Slashdot Mirror
You don't need to be "uber cool" (the actual word starts with an umlaut, by the way: "über") to find all those stickers on Windows computers ugly.
The "Mighty Mouse tech for trackpad button" idea is a good one. I'd support that.
No.
With the tremendous amount of physical real estate that the button takes up, there's no reason why splitting it into two would make things worse for virtually any user.I take it you've never done phone support, then. In my opinion, the second mouse button is one of the single worst physical interfaces ever invented for computers. Your main input device has two unlabelled buttons which can only be discerned by whether they are on the right or on the left of the device? This is just stupid. An astonishing number of people aren't even capable of reliably telling you which side right is, and which side left is (as I find out time and time again when telling somebody where to drive - "to the right. no, the other right").
Not to mention the bad influence the right mouse button has on UI design.
I've been using the two-button "right click" for nearly a year now and do it instinctively, but still think that a right button would be significantly more effective, and less limiting (I do occasionally need right-click+drag, or right-click+very very quick move)Yes, as I've said, it would be, but it would still make it worse for the majority of all users.
The Mighty Mouse does not have "extra buttons." By default, it works just like the "old" one-button Apple mouse.
Also, if you think the one-button mouse is about "impressing human eyes," you are mistaken. I'm not going to repeat the reasons why the one-button mouse is a good idea, but as a Windows developer, it's painfully obvious to me that the one-button mouse forces developers to create better interfaces.
Everyone I know learns how to type in school. Some people like the MB keyboard, some like the MBP keyboard, some like neither. I don't think it has anything to do with skill, it's just personal preference. I haven't used the MBs extensively, but when I have used them, I had no problem with them. My main notebook is a MBP, and I don't particularly like or dislike the keyboard. It works well enough for me.
My main issue with the new Apple keyboard is that it's impossible to make it "flat." It's always tilted towards the user. I immensely dislike this, as I prefer flat keyboards.
Just shut up about it already. People will use the term SKU in a lot of /. articles about consoles, and I don't want to scroll through this discussion each time. I've seent it about a dozen times in the last month. That's enough. For the rest of the year.
Apple sold 240'000 within 2 days. There are obviously more PSPs out there than iPhones as of now, but I have no doubt that Apple will reach its goal of selling 10 million by the end of '08.
The "emulation" part is not newsworthy by itself. The "for iPhone" part is what makes it newsworthy. This is one of the first non-web useful iPhone apps.
Downloadable Content like demos, small games, updates and enhancements for existing games, and movies and trailers.
There's definitely a point, even if it's not always to the customer's advantage (such as with the new ability of fixing bugs after a game is shipped - seems lots of console games have started shipping with bugs recently).
Apropos Intel, via Daringfireball.net:
One question that came from the audience wondered why Apple doesn't participate in the "Intel Inside" program, in which PC manufacturers affix the well-known labels to their computers."We like our own stickers better," Jobs said. "Don't get me wrong. We love working with Intel. We're proud to ship Intel products in Macs. They're screamers, and combined with our OS, we've tuned them well. It's just that everyone knows we use Intel processors. We'd rather not tell them about the product that's inside the box."
The best part, of course, is that the only time Jobs uses these crappy styles in his Keynote presentations is when the shows them off. Apple knows perfectly well about Tufte, but some of their customers are used to WordArt and might think Apple's stuff is inferior if they can't do the same ugly crap in the iWorks apps.
I sympathize for your issue with the second button, but I don't think fixing it is worth making the experience worse for everyone who doesn't need that specific use case. Clicking left-left+right-lift while dragging seems... pathological :-)
Yeah. I have a Macbook pro, almost a $3000 computer; and the keyboard is terrible.
Uhm. You're talking about different keyboards. The MacBook Pro has a "normal" notebook keyboard, while the MacBook (without Pro) has the "new style" keyboard, which is very similar to the one being used in this new Apple keyboard, from the looks of it.
Yes or No: Can you use ANY MP3 file you want as a ringtone on your iPhone, or not?
I'm not sure whether you read what I wrote. I already answered this. The iPhone currently comes with a set of predefined ringtones. You can't add any, either by buying them or by adding them yourself, without using a hack.
If the answer is no, that you have to buy special ring tones from iTunes
Again, you can not change the ring tones at all. You can't "buy special ring tones from iTunes."
Until you can, you have no point. Apple obviously left out a lot of features to get the first version of the iPhone out. We simply don't know whether we'll be able to set our own music as ringtones, or whether we'll have to buy them from Apple.
The rest of your argument (PocketPC is fundamentally better because you can install apps, and iPAQ is better because it has GPS) has nothing to do with the point you're trying to disprove, so I'll just take the liberty of ignoring it.
Interesting movie. I have to wonder, though: If the speed limit was increased, would people simply drive at (new speed limit) + 20, and the whole thing would be exactly as it was, except at a faster speed?
I'm not convinced you've got category 3 quite right. It seems to me that alcohol would be more of a 2.5, while some of those others might range more up towards 3.5. Or do you have evidence to the contrary (that alcohol actually is as dangerous as opium or cocaine)?
Yeah, I actually do have evidence: the drunks hanging around at my train station. Never seen an opium addict get so violent (actually, I've never seen an opium addict at all), and the coke addicts usually lead normal lives.
Sell Heroin -> Get somebody addicted
Sell a Mod chip -> let somebody play an imported game
Grey alright.
I don't think it's the modchip seller's task to make sure his customers respect the law. How do you propose this should work?
It's not the gun seller's task to ensure his customers don't kill anyone. It's not the Internet provider's task to ensure his customers don't download pirated apps. It's not the car seller's task to ensure his customers aren't driving recklessly. We have the police and a judicial system for that.
So you're basically saying that using a mod chip to pirating game is the same as downloading a commercial game over the Internet. Obviously, a huge percentage of all Internet connections are used to download stuff illegally. If Mod chips should be illegal, then so should Internet connections.
In the meantime, we still don't have Super Paper Mario and Second Opinion for the Wii in Europe. Many Japanese games don't appear over here, ever. I'm willing to give you my money, and I can't, because the Wii is not region-free. Why in the world should it be illegal to install a mod chip in my Wii which allows me to buy your games?
Oh come on, that's bullshit and you know it. The iPhone is absolutely targeted at and designed for the needs (or whims) of carriers, specifically AT&T, at the (extreme) expense of the user.
There are a lot of things that Apple did for AT&T, but it's definitely more aimed at users than other phones.
Are you claiming that end users do not want the ability to use free MP3 or $0.99 iTunes songs as ring tones, and would rather buy and use $6.99 ring tones from the carrier instead?
Since they can do neither, discussing this is somewhat moot at this point.
Or will you admit that maybe the phone is locked up specifically to make that impossible, because of the carrier's desire to make money, not because of the needs of the user? Or are you so brainwashed by Steve Job's reality distortion field that you can't see that fact?
Dude, you can't buy ringtones for the iPhone. And once you can, it won't be from AT&T, but from Apple's iTunes Store. Not sure who's the one who's brainwashed here.
Jup :-)
Just take the scroll out of its head, I guess.
Dude, gp was in reply to people saying that buying an OpenMoko is a better idea than buying an iPhone. For most people, it's not, as the site states. How is quoting a product's web site "denouncing" the product?
Of course Apple isn't a club or religion. That doesn't mean that making a phone which is targeted at end users rather than at carriers isn't at least a tiny bit revolutionary - not to mention that it's the first consumer-level device that comes with a multitouch screen :-)