In real push, a la Blackberry, the phone is basically running a server that sits idle until the email server connects to the phone to notify it. It's very efficient. It sounds like what Microsoft is doing is maintaining an active connection to the email server and periodically sending stay alive requests. Not quite the same thing.
If it's cutting into battery life that much it's not real "push" email, rather it's "pull" email -- i.e., a background process that polls a server periodically for email (and 50-75%? Are you polling every minute?). If that's the backwards method for email notification that your phone uses, then I guess you should disable it and check your email manually.
What exactly is your background task doing? Are there alternative programs that would accomplish the same thing without draining the battery in a noticeable way? If so, you've solved your problem.
I get so sick of people acting as though the iPhone is the first smartphone ever and "background processes" and their implications are uncharted territory. Smartphones have been around for years and I really haven't heard of many applications on Palm/Windows Mobile/Blackberry that have incurred massive data charges or have dramatically shortened battery life. If those applications did, they'd either be fixed or people would just stop using them!
The Reality Distortion Field is strong with this one. All the other smartphone APIs can handle backgrounding applications, why can't the iPhone? Remember that this isn't just about "background tasks", this is about not letting you switch between applications PERIOD. If you navigate away from your app, it's been closed, period. I can't imagine anyone on Slashdot giving Microsoft a pass if Windows Mobile worked the same way. The comments would either be "LOL Microsoft sucks, I can't switch between apps?!?" or "Microsoft is intentionally crippling third party development!"
Apple's been hiding behind the battery thing too much. No 3G? No, it's not because we want to stick you for another model, it's because it just drains too much battery! Nevermind that numerous other phones have 3G radios and can keep respectable battery life. Won't let user-created apps go into the background? It's that darn battery again! Forget that all other smartphones can do this and have even figured out that sending a "suspend" notification to applications when they go out of the foreground helps nullify battery usage by, you know, SUSPENDING the application until it is resumed.
Apple just wants to lock down the platform as much as possible, that's all there is to it.
I think the parent was implying that if you can't bench 700lbs as a professional weightlifter, you're nothing special. For the average male, yes, that's an absurd amount of weight. Seeing as how the big dogs in weightlifting have broken the half-ton mark, he's quite right that you won't stand out from the crowd with your 700lb benchpress.
The rest of his point is valid though. On average, men are stronger than women and the strongest man is stronger than the strongest woman. This isn't exactly a shocking revelation, so I don't see why this is even really an argument.
You know what's meant by the "proprietary" remark. An Apple machine is a far more "closed platform" than a plain PC built from parts. It's even got the dreaded TPM chip!
And if nothing else, it's a far more expensive way of accomplishing the same goal -- running Linux.
I will never understand why someone would buy a $2000 iMac and negate the entire reason for purchasing from Apple -- to run Mac OS X. You can run Linux for a lot less money, you know.
Honestly though, Mac OS X really isn't that bad -- in fact, I think it's pretty nice, especially if you come from a Linux background. You do realize that you can run pretty much any Linux app (as long as it doesn't do any funky OS-specific things) natively on Mac OS X, right? You could even run a full-fledged Linux installation via Parallels if you so desire.... Or is the main issue that you're one of those people who gets the "heebie-jeebies" at the thought of running software that isn't open source? In that case, my advice is to get a life -- it's just software! The world won't end if you run a piece of non-free code!
Someone's bound to have pointed this out already, but every cellphone store sells stripped-down phones that are free with contract. Yes, they might have just a few extra features beyond just "phone" (like contacts), but they won't get in the way of "dial a number and press 'send'" operation.
I wound up ripping the stream for a few weeks, and after eliminating the duplicates and such, it was a nice addition to my music library, not to mention pointed me in the right direction. The stream was only 96 kbps, but that's still not unlistenable. Anyway, the point is, now I know what I like, and if any of the artists I found were performing, I'd see them.
I guess actually buying the music of these artists you've discovered and enjoy is out of the question, huh?
Now you know why music companies are trying to get net radio stations to prevent ripping...
OK... but no one really expected to run third-party apps on the iPod in the first place.
The iPhone is essentially a handheld computer and is going up against other handheld computers, like the Treo and the Blackberry. Being able to write an arbitrary application that can access the phone's data and functionality is possible on those two devices (and has lead to some very useful applications), so naturally we're a little disappointed that the iPhone won't allow the same functionality.
Well, the problem with making AJAX the iPhone "SDK" is that the iPhone is 2.5G. Oops. Those neat-o AJAX apps won't be too much fun on a GPRS connection that is about as fast as a 56K modem (and in my experience, you get a burst of data, then nothing, then a burst, then nothing, ad infinitum).
Not sure about the processor, but Hawkins admitted at the conference today (look it up at Engadget) that the machine chokes a good bit on Flash videos. That should give you some indication about its power or lack thereof...
What good is stock as compensation if you can't ever sell it and spend the cash?
No one says you "can't" sell it, but if Hawkins truly thought Palm had a hit on their hands he'd be stupid to sell before the product is released. Ergo, by selling now, he demonstrates that he has little faith in the Folly-o.
I almost wonder what the point of all this is. Linux fanboys have made such a fuss about Dell and other companies shipping Linux machines, but I find it hard to believe that the "do it yourself" Linux crowd would actually even consider buying a machine that's already been built. The laptop makes sense I guess, but the desktops don't.
Plus, for a group of people that make such a big deal about OS choice, they'd probably be likely to wipe off Ubuntu as soon as possible (if not for a newer version of Ubuntu when it's available or for their distro of choice). So why not just get the desktop with Windows? They're not more expensive, you just have to install Linux versus having it done for you.
Yeah I know, I'm being facetious. I know this is all purely a symbolic thing. A big name company is selling Linux boxes. Woo hoo. And they're going to stop selling these Linux boxes when Linux geeks either don't buy any (because they want to build their own machines) or the Linux geeks who buy one or two boxes just to show support, well, stop buying boxes. No one outside of the Linux world would care about these machines since they can just get one that has Windows for the same price.
Well, the usual response is "this is totally different because they resold the (art, program, etc.) without crediting the (artist, programmer, etc.)." Ripping off movies and music is OK because, you know, they're not being resold...
Also notice how the word "theft" goes uncontested in stories like these, but as soon as it's about the MPAA or RIAA, there are always at least a dozen posts that are quick to point out that it's merely "copyright infringement".
And it's not downloading through a cellphone, but through a cellular modem card. Maybe if you read the article, or just had a clue, you would know this.
If you had a clue, you'd realize that it's possible to tether your EVDO-capable phone to your computer and achieve the exact same result as you get from the card. Now granted, I didn't read the article first, but made an educated guess based on the words "EVDO", "unlimited", and bandwidth-hogging geeks. They could've been using the phone, but they used the card instead. So I got that part wrong.
One problem is, how do you separate the leeches from the legitimate users? If I want to watch 2 x 500 MB TV shows every night from iTunes that's about 30 GB/month. How does the ISP tell me apart from someone abusing their service?
Well, I think the fact that you'd be downloading an amount of content that you could actually WATCH during the course of one month would be one indication. The other is that you're only spending as much time a day as it would take to download 1GB. Obviously that must mean you're NOT flooding your connection 24/7, otherwise you wouldn't be able to watch those two shows a day. It's very simple really: if you're flooding your connection constantly, you're probably a leech. If you're using it relatively sporadically, you're not.
You're talking about 30GB. There are leeches who are getting warned about downloading 100GB, 200GB, etc. Once the amounts start getting that high, it's really, really hard to defend their usage as "legitimate" as it becomes obvious that they must be downloading 24/7 for an entire month.
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In real push, a la Blackberry, the phone is basically running a server that sits idle until the email server connects to the phone to notify it. It's very efficient. It sounds like what Microsoft is doing is maintaining an active connection to the email server and periodically sending stay alive requests. Not quite the same thing.
If it's cutting into battery life that much it's not real "push" email, rather it's "pull" email -- i.e., a background process that polls a server periodically for email (and 50-75%? Are you polling every minute?). If that's the backwards method for email notification that your phone uses, then I guess you should disable it and check your email manually.
What exactly is your background task doing? Are there alternative programs that would accomplish the same thing without draining the battery in a noticeable way? If so, you've solved your problem.
I get so sick of people acting as though the iPhone is the first smartphone ever and "background processes" and their implications are uncharted territory. Smartphones have been around for years and I really haven't heard of many applications on Palm/Windows Mobile/Blackberry that have incurred massive data charges or have dramatically shortened battery life. If those applications did, they'd either be fixed or people would just stop using them!
The Reality Distortion Field is strong with this one. All the other smartphone APIs can handle backgrounding applications, why can't the iPhone? Remember that this isn't just about "background tasks", this is about not letting you switch between applications PERIOD. If you navigate away from your app, it's been closed, period. I can't imagine anyone on Slashdot giving Microsoft a pass if Windows Mobile worked the same way. The comments would either be "LOL Microsoft sucks, I can't switch between apps?!?" or "Microsoft is intentionally crippling third party development!"
Apple's been hiding behind the battery thing too much. No 3G? No, it's not because we want to stick you for another model, it's because it just drains too much battery! Nevermind that numerous other phones have 3G radios and can keep respectable battery life. Won't let user-created apps go into the background? It's that darn battery again! Forget that all other smartphones can do this and have even figured out that sending a "suspend" notification to applications when they go out of the foreground helps nullify battery usage by, you know, SUSPENDING the application until it is resumed.
Apple just wants to lock down the platform as much as possible, that's all there is to it.
let's not even talk about Winsock Trumpet.
Oh this is too rich. So what was Microsoft to do? Continue leaving a critical component (a TCP/IP stack) out of Windows forever?
Well yes, an honest 700lb press is quite impressive. I agree that the shirts are a crock, but... they're allowed.
I think the parent was implying that if you can't bench 700lbs as a professional weightlifter, you're nothing special. For the average male, yes, that's an absurd amount of weight. Seeing as how the big dogs in weightlifting have broken the half-ton mark, he's quite right that you won't stand out from the crowd with your 700lb benchpress.
The rest of his point is valid though. On average, men are stronger than women and the strongest man is stronger than the strongest woman. This isn't exactly a shocking revelation, so I don't see why this is even really an argument.
... this will make money... how, exactly?
You know what's meant by the "proprietary" remark. An Apple machine is a far more "closed platform" than a plain PC built from parts. It's even got the dreaded TPM chip!
And if nothing else, it's a far more expensive way of accomplishing the same goal -- running Linux.
Seriously man, it's just software. It's not a way of life.
And if he was so concerned about "community, liberty, and rights", why did he buy a $2000 proprietary machine just to run open source on it?
I will never understand why someone would buy a $2000 iMac and negate the entire reason for purchasing from Apple -- to run Mac OS X. You can run Linux for a lot less money, you know.
... Or is the main issue that you're one of those people who gets the "heebie-jeebies" at the thought of running software that isn't open source? In that case, my advice is to get a life -- it's just software! The world won't end if you run a piece of non-free code!
Honestly though, Mac OS X really isn't that bad -- in fact, I think it's pretty nice, especially if you come from a Linux background. You do realize that you can run pretty much any Linux app (as long as it doesn't do any funky OS-specific things) natively on Mac OS X, right? You could even run a full-fledged Linux installation via Parallels if you so desire.
Someone's bound to have pointed this out already, but every cellphone store sells stripped-down phones that are free with contract. Yes, they might have just a few extra features beyond just "phone" (like contacts), but they won't get in the way of "dial a number and press 'send'" operation.
Oh yeah, because buying tickets to Europe just for a few CDs
Uh, can't you buy those CDs from an online store...?
I wound up ripping the stream for a few weeks, and after eliminating the duplicates and such, it was a nice addition to my music library, not to mention pointed me in the right direction. The stream was only 96 kbps, but that's still not unlistenable. Anyway, the point is, now I know what I like, and if any of the artists I found were performing, I'd see them.
I guess actually buying the music of these artists you've discovered and enjoy is out of the question, huh?
Now you know why music companies are trying to get net radio stations to prevent ripping...
Visicalc required an "SDK" in the form of OS-level APIs for handling file I/O, console I/O, etc.
OK... but no one really expected to run third-party apps on the iPod in the first place.
The iPhone is essentially a handheld computer and is going up against other handheld computers, like the Treo and the Blackberry. Being able to write an arbitrary application that can access the phone's data and functionality is possible on those two devices (and has lead to some very useful applications), so naturally we're a little disappointed that the iPhone won't allow the same functionality.
YouTube was written without an SDK
Except that it also uses Flash, which includes ActionScript. That's an SDK of sorts.
The iPhone can't do Flash.
So, no one is going to be coding up a mobile YouTube on the iPhone (as if it would even be useable over a GPRS connection).
Well, the problem with making AJAX the iPhone "SDK" is that the iPhone is 2.5G. Oops. Those neat-o AJAX apps won't be too much fun on a GPRS connection that is about as fast as a 56K modem (and in my experience, you get a burst of data, then nothing, then a burst, then nothing, ad infinitum).
Not sure about the processor, but Hawkins admitted at the conference today (look it up at Engadget) that the machine chokes a good bit on Flash videos. That should give you some indication about its power or lack thereof...
What good is stock as compensation if you can't ever sell it and spend the cash?
No one says you "can't" sell it, but if Hawkins truly thought Palm had a hit on their hands he'd be stupid to sell before the product is released. Ergo, by selling now, he demonstrates that he has little faith in the Folly-o.
I almost wonder what the point of all this is. Linux fanboys have made such a fuss about Dell and other companies shipping Linux machines, but I find it hard to believe that the "do it yourself" Linux crowd would actually even consider buying a machine that's already been built. The laptop makes sense I guess, but the desktops don't.
Plus, for a group of people that make such a big deal about OS choice, they'd probably be likely to wipe off Ubuntu as soon as possible (if not for a newer version of Ubuntu when it's available or for their distro of choice). So why not just get the desktop with Windows? They're not more expensive, you just have to install Linux versus having it done for you.
Yeah I know, I'm being facetious. I know this is all purely a symbolic thing. A big name company is selling Linux boxes. Woo hoo. And they're going to stop selling these Linux boxes when Linux geeks either don't buy any (because they want to build their own machines) or the Linux geeks who buy one or two boxes just to show support, well, stop buying boxes. No one outside of the Linux world would care about these machines since they can just get one that has Windows for the same price.
Well, the usual response is "this is totally different because they resold the (art, program, etc.) without crediting the (artist, programmer, etc.)." Ripping off movies and music is OK because, you know, they're not being resold...
Also notice how the word "theft" goes uncontested in stories like these, but as soon as it's about the MPAA or RIAA, there are always at least a dozen posts that are quick to point out that it's merely "copyright infringement".
And it's not downloading through a cellphone, but through a cellular modem card. Maybe if you read the article, or just had a clue, you would know this.
If you had a clue, you'd realize that it's possible to tether your EVDO-capable phone to your computer and achieve the exact same result as you get from the card. Now granted, I didn't read the article first, but made an educated guess based on the words "EVDO", "unlimited", and bandwidth-hogging geeks. They could've been using the phone, but they used the card instead. So I got that part wrong.
One problem is, how do you separate the leeches from the legitimate users? If I want to watch 2 x 500 MB TV shows every night from iTunes that's about 30 GB/month. How does the ISP tell me apart from someone abusing their service?
Well, I think the fact that you'd be downloading an amount of content that you could actually WATCH during the course of one month would be one indication. The other is that you're only spending as much time a day as it would take to download 1GB. Obviously that must mean you're NOT flooding your connection 24/7, otherwise you wouldn't be able to watch those two shows a day. It's very simple really: if you're flooding your connection constantly, you're probably a leech. If you're using it relatively sporadically, you're not.
You're talking about 30GB. There are leeches who are getting warned about downloading 100GB, 200GB, etc. Once the amounts start getting that high, it's really, really hard to defend their usage as "legitimate" as it becomes obvious that they must be downloading 24/7 for an entire month.