Try to leave your Skype account online, it will drain the battery in less than a day.
Skyhost is a timer-driven CPU wakeup bitch. It's probably a good thing they did not let the Skype team install background services into the system until the performance is much improved.
It's probably bloat in Skype code. Remember that they "grew up" on the desktop and got onto mobile platforms later. Even the Skype integration in N900 and N9 has issues with memory and CPU use that no mobile application should be allowed to have.
Did they ever complain about the nausea from seeing your shaky cam feed?
I used video calls from mobile devices, like, a few times for gimmick value. For the regular Sunday chat with gramps, nothing beats a stationary PC with an attached HD camera.
And if for whatever reason an app uses too much power, do you know what happens? It gets uninstalled and the store ratings attracts a lot of downratings. It's a self correcting issue.
To work, this relies on an army of power users (no pun intended) gazing at their power monitoring tools and rating apps in enough numbers that their feedback is not lost among "omg teh app haz ponies!"
However, it looks as though Windows Phone targets a user base not so inclined to perform quality control for software vendors, so it's public APIs are designed more restrictively. I guess for Skype they will just wing it and hook it into the system for WP8, while the hoi polloi will still be offered a limited menu of background activities, Apple style.
Unlike your Android phone (leap of faith there), Windows Phones do not yet need a dual core processor, nor do I expect it suddenly to this Fall even though it is expected to have them at that point. The applications run just fine on a single core, as does pretty much everything on iOS (oh no, the iPhone 4 has a single core! Only the iPhone 4S has a dual core). As for the screen resolution, I have yet to see a real problem with 800x480 other than marketing, although I fully expect higher resolutions to appear with WP8.
I think this spec jostling results from a feedback loop between tech-crazy reviewers and geeks, and the manufacturers who are happy to oblige and tune marketing to tout whatever the bestest/biggest characteristic their top-of-the-line device has. What geeks didn't notice is that the race went past the point where it does not matter that much anymore for the users at large. Those who deride the Lumia phones for being two year old tech make a positive point without knowing it: approximately at that time smartphones became beefy enough so that further improvements bring diminishing returns in actual usefulness. So buying a Lumia, you get a practical (but beautiful) device while not being gouged for "the most megapixels".
But, but, some will say, iPhone has dual core and retina display, and Apple can't go wrong on this market, can they? Well, Apple is under pressure these days, and this pressure is themselves: they have to surprise their user base year after year with ever greater tech, so that iFans' renewal cycle continues. So what did iPhone 4S bring that could not be described as "more of the same"? Siri, maybe you can answer?
Car analogy time. I think the smartphone market as we've seen it can be compared with early developments in cars. First there were ridiculous carapaces with awful underpowered engines and kludgy controls, until somebody came up with a user interface that was good enough to stick on ever since. Then the engines became powerful enough so that the market could segment. You don't need a sporty V8 or a 4x4 SUV to commute to work and haul kids to soccer; a Honda Accord with a "puny" 2.0 L inline-four is good enough for that, while it costs much less and has better mpg. But there's always a car macho (often not as much in manhood) who says it's not a car unless he can drive it on a snowy road in the Rockies, or drive 3 times faster than the legal speed limit, or spend all his free time modding it in the garage, or whatever his power fantasy is. Get over it, different users value different things in their devices.
Isn't Google world supposed to use Google Talk?:-)
For those users who mostly use Skype to call mom in another country without the good old international call rates, this version is quite OK. Those who really need Skype always on, will have to wait for Apollo, or go for other platforms.
As the Warsaw Pact was crumbling and the people of the Soviet Union were exposed to Western influences, there was a surge of interest in DIY home computing. I think the availability of a local Z80 clone, as well as use of off-the-shelf consumer technology such as cassette tape and analog TV output, was what made Spectrum a popular choice for clone designs. One of those was my first home computer.
So that's how it looks like for a Linux zealot who takes a request to provide factual sources for an attack.
Just so you know, I have more than a decade of OSS programming under my belt, with some public history of contributions to match. This includes a lot of Maemo work, so I know more about it than you myth suckers can imagine. I haven't done any Windows or Mac development for half-dozen years. That does not change my perception of what I consider to be decent phone software.
High-end android phones are so powerful because there are customers willing to pay stupid money for specs they don't have a use for, not because it is required to run the OS.
Too bad that your definition of "facts" is the same as the Microsoft's "get the facts" campaign.
Dude, if you see how Amazon's best seller ratings may be padded for days in a row, you'd better explain it, not resort to empty rhetoric.
If anything, slashdot is now full of your fellow employees, upvoting pro-microsoft crap and downvoting any critic.
I guess you need to keep saying this to yourself to justify your biased moderation. Am I right assuming that you comment as an AC because of the strategically placed mod points you used to achieve another pathetic "win" for your imaginary cause?
I thought that Slashdot is full of Anti-MS shills.
No, it's full of people who cannot for the life of them conceive how any number of other people could genuinely like a Microsoft product on the basis of merit. Or that there are people who value different qualities in their phones than they do.
This goes together with lack of critical reasoning: note the moderation on the N9 sales myth thread up in the comments. Sad, actually; this site was supposed to attract people with better cognitive skills. Maybe it's just certain topics that attract the fanboi crowd.
As of the beginning of 2012: "Despite a modest launch and a limited distribution in terms of markets, Nokia's N9 model [Meego] has reached sales estimated between 1.5 and 2 million devices. According to Nokia's own quarterly report and analyst company Canalys analyses, the combined deliveries of the comparable Lumia (WP7) devices summed to approximately 1.2-1.5 million in the last quarter."
Where does this quote come from? None of the links you provide have it, and the Canalys report actually gives a figure of 0.6 million for MeeGo.
and yet they refused to sell the N950 at all when it was completed in 2011 (despite nil market overlap with WP7 phones).
Eh, no. It got the same software slapped on it that the N9 got, but most of the QA related to the hardware keyboard and the landscape orientation it forces the apps to support was skipped. Ask any actual N950 users if they have seen the UI failing to change orientation when the keyboard is open.
There are best seller ratings, too. Lumia 900 topped the chart for more than a week immediately after the sales start, despite being split into two separate items by color. Now the black variant is at #3, and cyan went down to #11, after becoming backordered up to 9 days ahead.
Finally. Being limited to buying Windows in a selection of two system UI languages because they are the only two sold in your country of residence (UK English apparently provided as a fallback to all foreigners) sucks, even more than being forced to install Windows in the first place.
RT can also mean a "runtime", and WinRT is already an established term for the modern set of APIs in Windows 8.
But yeah, your theories on their hidden agenda are so much more interesting.
Slashdot Mirror
Try to leave your Skype account online, it will drain the battery in less than a day. Skyhost is a timer-driven CPU wakeup bitch. It's probably a good thing they did not let the Skype team install background services into the system until the performance is much improved.
It's probably bloat in Skype code. Remember that they "grew up" on the desktop and got onto mobile platforms later. Even the Skype integration in N900 and N9 has issues with memory and CPU use that no mobile application should be allowed to have.
Obviously every other person in the world has the same priorities. This explains why Lumia phones collect dust in AT&T stores. Oh wait...
Did they ever complain about the nausea from seeing your shaky cam feed?
I used video calls from mobile devices, like, a few times for gimmick value. For the regular Sunday chat with gramps, nothing beats a stationary PC with an attached HD camera.
And if for whatever reason an app uses too much power, do you know what happens? It gets uninstalled and the store ratings attracts a lot of downratings. It's a self correcting issue.
To work, this relies on an army of power users (no pun intended) gazing at their power monitoring tools and rating apps in enough numbers that their feedback is not lost among "omg teh app haz ponies!"
However, it looks as though Windows Phone targets a user base not so inclined to perform quality control for software vendors, so it's public APIs are designed more restrictively. I guess for Skype they will just wing it and hook it into the system for WP8, while the hoi polloi will still be offered a limited menu of background activities, Apple style.
Unlike your Android phone (leap of faith there), Windows Phones do not yet need a dual core processor, nor do I expect it suddenly to this Fall even though it is expected to have them at that point. The applications run just fine on a single core, as does pretty much everything on iOS (oh no, the iPhone 4 has a single core! Only the iPhone 4S has a dual core). As for the screen resolution, I have yet to see a real problem with 800x480 other than marketing, although I fully expect higher resolutions to appear with WP8.
I think this spec jostling results from a feedback loop between tech-crazy reviewers and geeks, and the manufacturers who are happy to oblige and tune marketing to tout whatever the bestest/biggest characteristic their top-of-the-line device has. What geeks didn't notice is that the race went past the point where it does not matter that much anymore for the users at large. Those who deride the Lumia phones for being two year old tech make a positive point without knowing it: approximately at that time smartphones became beefy enough so that further improvements bring diminishing returns in actual usefulness. So buying a Lumia, you get a practical (but beautiful) device while not being gouged for "the most megapixels".
But, but, some will say, iPhone has dual core and retina display, and Apple can't go wrong on this market, can they? Well, Apple is under pressure these days, and this pressure is themselves: they have to surprise their user base year after year with ever greater tech, so that iFans' renewal cycle continues. So what did iPhone 4S bring that could not be described as "more of the same"? Siri, maybe you can answer?
Car analogy time. I think the smartphone market as we've seen it can be compared with early developments in cars. First there were ridiculous carapaces with awful underpowered engines and kludgy controls, until somebody came up with a user interface that was good enough to stick on ever since. Then the engines became powerful enough so that the market could segment. You don't need a sporty V8 or a 4x4 SUV to commute to work and haul kids to soccer; a Honda Accord with a "puny" 2.0 L inline-four is good enough for that, while it costs much less and has better mpg. But there's always a car macho (often not as much in manhood) who says it's not a car unless he can drive it on a snowy road in the Rockies, or drive 3 times faster than the legal speed limit, or spend all his free time modding it in the garage, or whatever his power fantasy is. Get over it, different users value different things in their devices.
Isn't Google world supposed to use Google Talk? :-)
For those users who mostly use Skype to call mom in another country without the good old international call rates, this version is quite OK. Those who really need Skype always on, will have to wait for Apollo, or go for other platforms.
As the Warsaw Pact was crumbling and the people of the Soviet Union were exposed to Western influences, there was a surge of interest in DIY home computing. I think the availability of a local Z80 clone, as well as use of off-the-shelf consumer technology such as cassette tape and analog TV output, was what made Spectrum a popular choice for clone designs. One of those was my first home computer.
So that's how it looks like for a Linux zealot who takes a request to provide factual sources for an attack.
Just so you know, I have more than a decade of OSS programming under my belt, with some public history of contributions to match. This includes a lot of Maemo work, so I know more about it than you myth suckers can imagine. I haven't done any Windows or Mac development for half-dozen years. That does not change my perception of what I consider to be decent phone software.
Oh, I'm sure it would be easy to point out any facts I missed in the offered link. Care to?
High-end android phones are so powerful because there are customers willing to pay stupid money for specs they don't have a use for, not because it is required to run the OS.
FTFY
Too bad that your definition of "facts" is the same as the Microsoft's "get the facts" campaign.
Dude, if you see how Amazon's best seller ratings may be padded for days in a row, you'd better explain it, not resort to empty rhetoric.
If anything, slashdot is now full of your fellow employees, upvoting pro-microsoft crap and downvoting any critic.
I guess you need to keep saying this to yourself to justify your biased moderation. Am I right assuming that you comment as an AC because of the strategically placed mod points you used to achieve another pathetic "win" for your imaginary cause?
Slashdot: where pointing people to facts is considered trolling. Way to go, circlejerkers.
I thought that Slashdot is full of Anti-MS shills.
No, it's full of people who cannot for the life of them conceive how any number of other people could genuinely like a Microsoft product on the basis of merit. Or that there are people who value different qualities in their phones than they do. This goes together with lack of critical reasoning: note the moderation on the N9 sales myth thread up in the comments. Sad, actually; this site was supposed to attract people with better cognitive skills. Maybe it's just certain topics that attract the fanboi crowd.
As of the beginning of 2012: "Despite a modest launch and a limited distribution in terms of markets, Nokia's N9 model [Meego] has reached sales estimated between 1.5 and 2 million devices. According to Nokia's own quarterly report and analyst company Canalys analyses, the combined deliveries of the comparable Lumia (WP7) devices summed to approximately 1.2-1.5 million in the last quarter."
Where does this quote come from? None of the links you provide have it, and the Canalys report actually gives a figure of 0.6 million for MeeGo.
and yet they refused to sell the N950 at all when it was completed in 2011 (despite nil market overlap with WP7 phones).
Eh, no. It got the same software slapped on it that the N9 got, but most of the QA related to the hardware keyboard and the landscape orientation it forces the apps to support was skipped. Ask any actual N950 users if they have seen the UI failing to change orientation when the keyboard is open.
Nokia shoulda stuck with meego. That one phone they released with it was awesome!
Which phone? The N9 runs a "MeeGo instance" that is in reality Maemo 6. The crazy platform meandering is what has done that platform in.
...And I applaud the Troll moderation on a requests for factual references. Why do I even still use this site.
Here you go.
Sorry, that's a typical Tomi Ahonen rant that only references some comment thread which does not cite anything of substance. My request stands.
Why, it's like that oft-visited shelf in the supermarket, full of products named like Sensation Glide Vibra-Ribbed.
There are best seller ratings, too. Lumia 900 topped the chart for more than a week immediately after the sales start, despite being split into two separate items by color. Now the black variant is at #3, and cyan went down to #11, after becoming backordered up to 9 days ahead.
The Linux based (!=Android) N9 outsells the Windows phones
Source?
Finally. Being limited to buying Windows in a selection of two system UI languages because they are the only two sold in your country of residence (UK English apparently provided as a fallback to all foreigners) sucks, even more than being forced to install Windows in the first place.
RT can also mean a "runtime", and WinRT is already an established term for the modern set of APIs in Windows 8. But yeah, your theories on their hidden agenda are so much more interesting.
And when you fail to stop in time and collide into the closest massive object, you'll notice that your airbags do not deploy. Because the car is OFF.
Airbags are usually inflated by pyrotechnic charges.
On every car I know the steering wheel lock only engages when the ignition key is pulled out.
Not on my (European) Toyota. There is an "accessory" position to keep the lock disengaged.
Another problem with turning off the engine would be losing the powered steering, I think?