I think part of the problem is that Apple has an even larger headstart on tablets than they had on smartphones.
Considering that Apple didn't have *any* head-start on smart phones, I'd say you're right. (Yes, a quick search will turn up several examples of iphone-like phones announced and released *before* the iphone) Heck their success in the market is a miracle in itself, as the first iPhone couldn't even do basic things like picture messaging.
On tablets, I don't think there's a real market. If people wanted tablets, we'd have seen the numerous as-good and better (sometimes better and cheaper) products succeed in the market. We'll have forgotten about this fad in a few years, just like we forgot about PDAs.
. The average non-technie user who wants to be able to lie in bed and watch a movie isn't likely likely to be spending time rooting a fucking e-reader and then trying to squeeze everything they can out of a device that effectively belongs to a different class of products.
The average non-techie user who wants to be able to lay in bed and watch movies will just buy a TV.
Absolutely. There is no tablet in the world worth over $200. That even includes the asus transformer 32GB with the dock. These devices are just not worth it - limited functionality for a premium? Of course it's not selling.
I agree. Given even Apple's numbers, tablets aren't the revolution they've been made out to be. We've seen tons of tablets from various manufactures, some are both cheaper and better than Apples offering, yet they're not really selling in great quantity.
I couldn't agree more.
I expect one of two things to happen to the tablet market: 1) Prices will stabilize at around $200 for the high-end models $150 for the average, $75 on the low end and they'll become a common household item. 2) In a few years we'll have forgotten all about them.
If there was a real market for tablet computers you'd see competing tablets, many of which are as good or better than the iPad, taking market share. Instead, we see one poorly selling product after another.
At the prices I mentioned earlier, tablets become an impulse buy. (They are toys, after all, no matter how hard people try to justify their purchase as being useful for work. For the clueless: using it for work and it being useful are two very different things.)
I saw one once at an airport bar. An older businessman was awkwardly tapping out an email. Then he put it away. This was a few months after the iPad first came out. I haven't seen one since.
I'm not too surprised. For being a "portable" device they're surprisingly clumsy to carry around. If I was flying with one, It would probably just say in my carry-on. If I was going to pull my bag out, I'd probably just grab the computer. It does more, and sits up on the tray-table all on its own.
With every other MP3 player, you don't have to worry about your music magically disappearing.
I want my products to "just work". Apple products are fine for people who have the time and inclination to tinker to get basic functionality out of their products, but not for me.
Want to copy music from your iPhone? Find a tutorial, download some sketchy software, pray.
Want to copy music from your Blackberry, Android, etc.? Plug it in, drag and drop.
Sorry about your fuckup. Sucks to be you. Next time, read the instructions and don't click OK on every popup without reading and understanding what you are about to do.
It happens to lot's of people all the time. It's not a fuck-up on the users part. My favorite is when iTunes erases music purchased on the device over wifi.
You know who is NEVER impacted by this sort of problem? Anyone without an iPod.
Yeah, seriously. If you want to copy your music from your iPhone to your computer, it couldn't be simpler:
1) Jailbreak 2) Install an SFTP program 3) Set autolock to 'never' 4) Open your FTP program, use your devices address as the host, set the username to "root" and the password to "alpine," or "dottie", set the port to 22 5) connect via SSH and navigate to/private/var/mobile/Media/iTunes_Control/Music/ 6) copy away!
Honestly, it's so super simple that my grandma was able to figure it out on her own!
I buy an album of MP3 songs from Amazon. I drag and drop the folder onto the iTunes icon. The songs are copied to iTunes. Again, seamless to the iDevice.
Someone bought into the "easiest to use" myth.
Let me explain the process for copying music d/led from amazon onto a $30 non-apple mp3 player:
I buy an album of MP3 songs from Amazon. I drag and drop the folder onto the device icon. The songs are copied to the generic device. Again, seamless to the generic player.
Sound familiar?
Now, of course, if I have content on my device that I want copied to another device, I simply reverse the process. Try getting all of your songs copied from your iDevice onto another computer or mp3 player.
For the $30 player, it's a simply drag and drop. For the iDevice it's bloated chunk of software that may erase all the music on your iDevice as it automatically syncs to an empty library.
Heck, why not weigh me and charge me my cost by weight and the weight of my luggage.
Sounds reasonable to me, I'd really enjoy the savings. Of course, I'm not a fat slob like the majority of my countrymen.
Remember all the news stories about the fatties who whined and complained because the airline forced them to buy two seats because they couldn't squeeze their way into a normal-sized seat?
Imagine the, slow, grunting, uprising -- it could get hilarious.
And when you factor in the environmental cost of the paper (which needs replacement every so often for updates or repair), it start to look like a relatively decent idea, ecologically.
Because the iPad's are super-durable as compared to paper charts and won't even need repaired or replaced?
You can't buy a patent to bury the technology. See, patents work on an exchange: The public gives you a temporary monopoly on your invention and we get to know how it works (full disclosure).
Your uncles patent isn't lost in some archive, it's in a searchable database: http://www.uspto.gov/
Are you implying there are people without internet access there? It was my understanding that, aside from towns on the western banks of the Mississippi River and cities on the Pacific coast, no one lives in the western half of the US aside from cacti, tumbleweed, some wild horses, and a couple of mountain lions.
While this is likely true, I was trying to account for any errant travelers, hopelessly lost in the Rockies, who have not yet been eaten by a mountain lion.
Because The Astonishing Tribe and QNX are just the worst?
A pig in lipstick is still a pig.
Because a completely different operating system is the same as the old one with a face lift? Please.
Call me when iOS and Android can multitask properly like even old versions of BBOS have been able to do for years before iOS and Android hit the market.
But with the same host of dummies in the 3rd party market, we're still getting crap, crap and more crap.
Dummies like some of the biggest names in the electronic world, from Amazon to EA?
No. Offerings on Android and (may God forgive me) iOS make it really hard to wait.
When iOS and Android can do half of what my BB can do in terms of productivity, security, and quality, let me know. Until then, enjoy your game boy -- er, I mean mobile "phone".
What? If creationists have done any major evil, it's the confusion they've created in non-religious laypersons over the definitions of "theory" and "hypothesis" as the uninformed go about educationist one another.
An hypothesis is a Testable Prediction
It is not an unproven assumption that somehow "graduates" to a theory once there is evidence to support it. It can be 100% wrong, and still be a hypothesis in the scientific sense if it is testable.
We get hypotheses from theories as...
A theory is a Predictive Model. It can be 100% wrong and still be a scientific theory if it is 1) a model and 2) makes testable predictions.
You can't prove a theory, only find evidence which supports or doesn't support predictions made by the theory.
Now, all this confusion about what constitutes a theory is due to these creationist idiots and their "only a theory" mantra -- meant to imply that a theory was no more than a wild guess. As theory is the best science can offer, and knowing it's more than just a guess, the uninformed took it upon themselves to add all these additional nonsense bits to the word theory. In the process, these well-meaning morons mucked up the word "hypothesis" as well.
Yep. The most important consideration when buying a phone is the ability to stream music. It's not like there aren't *hundreds* of other music streaming apps available for blackberry phones, including popular services like pandora and grooveshark.
Besides, music streaming services are a huge waste on a phone. Someday, you'll run across someone with an MP3 player and you'll probably feel like a ginormous "L" has been stamped on your forehead.
Then evil Apple created a phone that ultimately allowed users to bypass the phone companies and load music and trivially create and load custom ringtones at no charge and browse the web without telco interference.
Like I could do with my blackberry and various dumb-phones *years* before that?
Damn those time travelers, always stealing Apples ideas before they have them!
Slashdot Mirror
I think part of the problem is that Apple has an even larger headstart on tablets than they had on smartphones.
Considering that Apple didn't have *any* head-start on smart phones, I'd say you're right. (Yes, a quick search will turn up several examples of iphone-like phones announced and released *before* the iphone) Heck their success in the market is a miracle in itself, as the first iPhone couldn't even do basic things like picture messaging.
On tablets, I don't think there's a real market. If people wanted tablets, we'd have seen the numerous as-good and better (sometimes better and cheaper) products succeed in the market. We'll have forgotten about this fad in a few years, just like we forgot about PDAs.
. The average non-technie user who wants to be able to lie in bed and watch a movie isn't likely likely to be spending time rooting a fucking e-reader and then trying to squeeze everything they can out of a device that effectively belongs to a different class of products.
The average non-techie user who wants to be able to lay in bed and watch movies will just buy a TV.
Putting 2.X on a tablet just makes it a big phone that can't make calls. That's not what tablets should be.
Er, but that's what the iPad was, and continues to be.
I would like to see NFC... in more tablets though
This puzzles me. Outside of flicking photos from one device to another, the only real use I've see is payments.
Is swiping a tablet at point-of-sale that much more convenient than pulling out your wallet?
Absolutely. There is no tablet in the world worth over $200. That even includes the asus transformer 32GB with the dock. These devices are just not worth it - limited functionality for a premium? Of course it's not selling.
I agree. Given even Apple's numbers, tablets aren't the revolution they've been made out to be. We've seen tons of tablets from various manufactures, some are both cheaper and better than Apples offering, yet they're not really selling in great quantity.
I couldn't agree more.
I expect one of two things to happen to the tablet market: 1) Prices will stabilize at around $200 for the high-end models $150 for the average, $75 on the low end and they'll become a common household item. 2) In a few years we'll have forgotten all about them.
If there was a real market for tablet computers you'd see competing tablets, many of which are as good or better than the iPad, taking market share. Instead, we see one poorly selling product after another.
At the prices I mentioned earlier, tablets become an impulse buy. (They are toys, after all, no matter how hard people try to justify their purchase as being useful for work. For the clueless: using it for work and it being useful are two very different things.)
I saw one once at an airport bar. An older businessman was awkwardly tapping out an email. Then he put it away. This was a few months after the iPad first came out. I haven't seen one since.
I'm not too surprised. For being a "portable" device they're surprisingly clumsy to carry around. If I was flying with one, It would probably just say in my carry-on. If I was going to pull my bag out, I'd probably just grab the computer. It does more, and sits up on the tray-table all on its own.
With every other MP3 player, you don't have to worry about your music magically disappearing.
I want my products to "just work". Apple products are fine for people who have the time and inclination to tinker to get basic functionality out of their products, but not for me.
Want to copy music from your iPhone? Find a tutorial, download some sketchy software, pray.
Want to copy music from your Blackberry, Android, etc.? Plug it in, drag and drop.
he and his colleagues changed so much in computing in such a positive way.
Citation needed
Dictators die too old, good folk die too young
But Steve Jobs' death is juuuust right.
1) Wipe iPod and enable for disk use.
2) Back up music library before reinstalling OS.
3) Drag music files back into iTunes.
4) Go on with life.
Just works, eh?
So according to your steps ... you wipe the device before you back up your data? How's that work out for you?
Sorry about your fuckup. Sucks to be you. Next time, read the instructions and don't click OK on every popup without reading and understanding what you are about to do.
It happens to lot's of people all the time. It's not a fuck-up on the users part. My favorite is when iTunes erases music purchased on the device over wifi.
You know who is NEVER impacted by this sort of problem? Anyone without an iPod.
Yeah, seriously. If you want to copy your music from your iPhone to your computer, it couldn't be simpler:
1) Jailbreak /private/var/mobile/Media/iTunes_Control/Music/
2) Install an SFTP program
3) Set autolock to 'never'
4) Open your FTP program, use your devices address as the host, set the username to "root" and the password to "alpine," or "dottie", set the port to 22
5) connect via SSH and navigate to
6) copy away!
Honestly, it's so super simple that my grandma was able to figure it out on her own!
I buy an album of MP3 songs from Amazon. I drag and drop the folder onto the iTunes icon. The songs are copied to iTunes. Again, seamless to the iDevice.
Someone bought into the "easiest to use" myth.
Let me explain the process for copying music d/led from amazon onto a $30 non-apple mp3 player:
I buy an album of MP3 songs from Amazon. I drag and drop the folder onto the device icon. The songs are copied to the generic device. Again, seamless to the generic player.
Sound familiar?
Now, of course, if I have content on my device that I want copied to another device, I simply reverse the process. Try getting all of your songs copied from your iDevice onto another computer or mp3 player.
For the $30 player, it's a simply drag and drop. For the iDevice it's bloated chunk of software that may erase all the music on your iDevice as it automatically syncs to an empty library.
But I'm glad you're happy with it.
Heck, why not weigh me and charge me my cost by weight and the weight of my luggage.
Sounds reasonable to me, I'd really enjoy the savings. Of course, I'm not a fat slob like the majority of my countrymen.
Remember all the news stories about the fatties who whined and complained because the airline forced them to buy two seats because they couldn't squeeze their way into a normal-sized seat?
Imagine the, slow, grunting, uprising -- it could get hilarious.
And when you factor in the environmental cost of the paper (which needs replacement every so often for updates or repair), it start to look like a relatively decent idea, ecologically.
Because the iPad's are super-durable as compared to paper charts and won't even need repaired or replaced?
So it's like Firefox but the extensions cost money.
The analogy would work better if you needed to download a web brower plugin for Firefox.
You can't buy a patent to bury the technology. See, patents work on an exchange: The public gives you a temporary monopoly on your invention and we get to know how it works (full disclosure).
Your uncles patent isn't lost in some archive, it's in a searchable database: http://www.uspto.gov/
Are you implying there are people without internet access there? It was my understanding that, aside from towns on the western banks of the Mississippi River and cities on the Pacific coast, no one lives in the western half of the US aside from cacti, tumbleweed, some wild horses, and a couple of mountain lions.
While this is likely true, I was trying to account for any errant travelers, hopelessly lost in the Rockies, who have not yet been eaten by a mountain lion.
Also, bigfoot.
There was one last night in CO. Why is this news for nerds?
Earth quakes on the east coast are pretty rare. Also, no one with internet access lives in Colorado.
Phones are back for me now
Okay ... did you need someone to call and console you?
They should have bought better talent.
Because The Astonishing Tribe and QNX are just the worst?
A pig in lipstick is still a pig.
Because a completely different operating system is the same as the old one with a face lift? Please.
Call me when iOS and Android can multitask properly like even old versions of BBOS have been able to do for years before iOS and Android hit the market.
But with the same host of dummies in the 3rd party market, we're still getting crap, crap and more crap.
Dummies like some of the biggest names in the electronic world, from Amazon to EA?
No. Offerings on Android and (may God forgive me) iOS make it really hard to wait.
When iOS and Android can do half of what my BB can do in terms of productivity, security, and quality, let me know. Until then, enjoy your game boy -- er, I mean mobile "phone".
That kid is amazing. Not only can he ride a bike around like any sighted kid, he can also play basket ball incredibly well.
I recommend anyone unfamiliar go dig up some videos of this kid in action.
it's just a hypothesis, not a theory
What? If creationists have done any major evil, it's the confusion they've created in non-religious laypersons over the definitions of "theory" and "hypothesis" as the uninformed go about educationist one another.
An hypothesis is a Testable Prediction
It is not an unproven assumption that somehow "graduates" to a theory once there is evidence to support it. It can be 100% wrong, and still be a hypothesis in the scientific sense if it is testable.
We get hypotheses from theories as ...
A theory is a Predictive Model. It can be 100% wrong and still be a scientific theory if it is 1) a model and 2) makes testable predictions.
You can't prove a theory, only find evidence which supports or doesn't support predictions made by the theory.
Now, all this confusion about what constitutes a theory is due to these creationist idiots and their "only a theory" mantra -- meant to imply that a theory was no more than a wild guess. As theory is the best science can offer, and knowing it's more than just a guess, the uninformed took it upon themselves to add all these additional nonsense bits to the word theory. In the process, these well-meaning morons mucked up the word "hypothesis" as well.
Yep. The most important consideration when buying a phone is the ability to stream music. It's not like there aren't *hundreds* of other music streaming apps available for blackberry phones, including popular services like pandora and grooveshark.
Besides, music streaming services are a huge waste on a phone. Someday, you'll run across someone with an MP3 player and you'll probably feel like a ginormous "L" has been stamped on your forehead.
Then evil Apple created a phone that ultimately allowed users to bypass the phone companies and load music and trivially create and load custom ringtones at no charge and browse the web without telco interference.
Like I could do with my blackberry and various dumb-phones *years* before that?
Damn those time travelers, always stealing Apples ideas before they have them!