This is why you go to school and get a good education, so you can get a job that can't be replaced by a robot.
To paraphrase a line from The Incredibles, "When everyone is college educated - no one will be."
I'm not exactly thrilled at the prospect of living in a world where you'll need a 4 year college degree to bag groceries, because everyone in the transportation industry was put out of work by self-driving vehicles and drones. From the looks of things, we're not even that far off.
Much as a Fencing operation or a chop shop might occupy similar premises to legitimate businesses?
Bad analogy. A fencing operation or chop shop is taking possession of stolen property and re-selling it. It was more like Megaupload was a strip mall and they leased out space to legitimate businesses and a few chop shops.
eBay essentially gets away with the same thing (and takes 10% on each sale). You don't honestly think all these iPhones are from people who just forgot their iCloud password, do you?
Were you born a criminal sociopath and con-artist, or did you evolve into one?
You may personally dislike the guy, but running a public cloud storage service isn't supposed to be illegal. The service had substantial, non-infringing uses, which was previously the litmus test for whether a product exists solely to enable copyright infringement. Otherwise, we wouldn't have things like photocopiers, tape recorders, MP3 players, VCRs, DVRs, cameras, and pretty much every form of blank media.
Megaupload was used quite extensively for storing open source projects and homebrew Android ROMs. That alone should've demonstrated the service had substantial, non-infringing uses.
I understand that Megaupload was allegedly not acting on DMCA takedown requests as promptly as they should've. Still, that seems like something that should be handled with fines, not going all Gestapo by seizing the domain and servers. You wouldn't torch a restaurant to the ground for failing a health inspection, would you?
Chances are, your cable company and your ISP are one and the same. I have Earthlink through Brighthouse and they just raised the bill by $2 last month. It's now up to $45.95/mo, for 15Mbps down/1Mbps up. It seems the more people cut cords, the more the cable companies will push back by raising prices on "Internet only" service. I'd be thrilled to tell them where to stick it and switch to a less expensive competitor, except there isn't one. AT&T is the only other local broadband provider (very slow DSL) and their limited-time promotional rate only applies if you're signing up for bundled services.
It's foolish to think cable companies are just going to roll over and get used to lower profits. I'll bet a couple years from now, we'll all be paying about $90-$120 just for broadband and then paying Netflix/Amazon/Apple for TV service. We'll reminiscence about the good ol' days when that amount of money used to buy broadband access and cable TV service!
He bought something he doesn't know what ELSE to do with. But fine, be a jackass.
I've seen some idiotic "Ask Slashdot" stories, but this one probably takes the cake. To use the ever-popular car analogy, it's like asking "I just realized my car has a 12 volt electrical receptacle in the dashboard, what sort of things can I plug in?"
Yet another "Ask Slashdot" that can easily be solved by Google.
Programming is not special. It does not require a "special mind" or other magical in-born trait.
Perhaps not, but it does require a certain mental disposition to enjoy (or at least tolerate) as a career. Most people simply don't want to spend 40+ hours per week, sitting at a desk, staring at code on a computer screen.
Why would *anyone* encourage their child, regardless of gender, to spend a decade or more training for what is quickly becoming a minimum-wage job at best.
This.
Coding jobs can be easily outsourced to wherever the going rate for labor is cheapest. Google's "coder shortage" seems completely imaginary. They're an advertising company whose greatest trick was convincing the world they are a software company.
Really, the only advantage to a dumphone is the inexpensive cost to replace it, should it become lost or broken. Most non-contract wireless providers with a "bring your own phone" option are perfectly happy letting you use a cheap plan on a modern flagship smartphone, so being a Luddite won't save you much on your monthly wireless bill.
Regarding battery life, the main reason smartphones don't have the endurance of dumbphones comes down to how people use them. If you turn off mobile data, WiFi, Bluetooth and background app refresh, even an iPhone 5 can go a week on standby. You could also just buy an extended battery, portable USB pack, car charger, solar charger, etc.
I suspect this is more about longing for the "good old days" when people didn't expect you to be reachable through e-mail and at least 3 different social networks. Sorry, but using a dumbphone won't bring those days back.
Next thing you know, they might develop big machines to replace covered wagons and plows. Then where will we be, when all those teamsters and farmers are put out of work?
It actually is pretty tough to make a living as a small farmer these days.
A functioning society requires jobs that pay a livable wage to people who, for whatever reason, aren't cut out for collage. These are the jobs that are rapidly vanishing, due to automation.
The industrial revolution brought high atmospheric CO2 levels, the likes of which haven't been seen on this planet in over 20 million years. There's no avoiding it, "progress" always comes at a cost.
Don't get me wrong, I would LOVE to put solar panels on my house and stick it to the man and all. I just don't happen to have $30K laying around.
If you have access to grid power, photovoltaics are just a piss poor investment. Sure, there's the "going green" aspect of it, but ultimately it's still just an investment - you're spending money now in the hope of making more of it back over a period of time. You'll likely do better investing the same amount of money in the stock market and leave the electricity generation to the people with the big cooling towers.
"Bitcoin is about to blow up, because somewhere in bumfuckistan everyone is about to start using it!"
Translation:
"I foolishly invested in Bitcoin and would very much like it if the greater fool theory could work its magic, so I can cash out without too much of a loss, thanks."
Perhaps it is just the way my brain is wired, when I see a tattoo my brain instinctively registers it as "damage" and that the person may be injured or ill. Certainly others must have the same instinctive reaction, yet it seems even more people are doing that these days.
Trypophobia is a real thing, so it isn't far off to imagine the sight of a tattoo evoking a similar reaction in some people.
Not all tattoo inks are created equal. Many practitioners use ink from botanical sources.
Obviously, non-GMO botanical sources, otherwise they're not hipster enough.
Somewhere at a Chipotle, there's a hipster who can't order his non-GMO burrito with his Apple watch, because his tattoo is interfering with the security features. Oh, the irony.
Not sure why you got modded down, you made a valid point. Android used to be all about getting whichever phone had the features that best suited your needs. Now every flagship phone without a fruit on the back, is a freakin' phablet.
Yeah. Must be the buyers who are braindead, not people like yourself (and CmdrTaco) who can't see what Apple actually does bring to the table.
I fell for the hype and bought a first generation iPhone when Apple knocked $200 off the price. Because, what do you know, at the time they weren't actually selling like hotcakes.
Let's not forget, back then it didn't run apps, couldn't record video, had no stereo bluetooth, didn't do MMS and maxed out at EDGE speeds (when even dumbphones were beginning to ship with 3G). The battery life was lackluster, the reception and call quality was abysmal. Sure, mobile Safari was pretty awesome at the time compared to the competition - when it wasn't constantly crashing, that is.
Fast forward to today and while my phone is still technically an "iPhone", it bears only a superficial resemblance to the original model that I frequently found myself cursing at, back in the day. The battery life is tolerable, reception and call quality is excellent. The screen size has been increased and the pixel density has doubled. The cellular data connection is faster than my cable modem at home. Web pages render in the blink of an eye and Safari only seems to crash on me once in a blue moon. I don't feel like I'm missing out on any essential features - stereo bluetooth, MMS, front facing camera, 1080p video recording, the gang's all here. Heck, it even has a feature of dubious value which I don't even use - a fingerprint reader.
The Apple Watch could have some potential, but you'd be idiotic to believe that potential will be realized on first generation hardware. I've been burned enough times on first generation Apple products (Mac Mini, iPhone and the iPad) that I've decided to sit this one out. But hey, the way I look at it is: the idiots buying this thing today are subsidizing the development costs of the future model I might someday actually want.
Oh, who am I kidding? I loathe wearing a watch and I don't need one to tell me to look at my phone. The damn thing may as well be a pocket pager, for all intents and purposes.
This deal is good for some people, not good for others. If you think it'll work for you, sign up, if you don't, then don't. It seems more than a bit of a stretch to proclaim that the plan is a colossal failure because it does not meet your particular needs.
Don't know if you missed the part where it requires a Nexus 6. Due to Sprint being one of the network providers, it's also very likely to continue to be limited to "approved handsets" only, going forward. So, even if you think this is a great deal and the plans are up your alley, you still also have to want/already own a Nexus 6.
Personally, for my usage, Cricket's $35/mo plan is still a better deal. Plus, it runs on AT&T's network and I can use any unlocked GSM phone I want.
Sell the iPads at auction and sue the 3rd party software vendor for failing to deliver on their promises. Not sure if the news article is just daft or the school really thinks Apple should take back 120,000 used iPads because of what amounts to a case of very late (the article says this project started in 2013) buyer's remorse.
The people who make moronic comments about flipping hard-to-get gadgets on eBay have clearly never sold on eBay. Very often, the winning bidder turns out to be a non-paying deadbeat or a scammer, and then you're stuck waiting a few days on eBay to refund your end-of-sale & listing fees or arguing with PayPal. Even if you manage a successful sale, eBay takes 10% and PayPal takes somewhere around 2.9%.
As the Apple Watch comes in more combinations than a bag of mixed nuts, I doubt there's as much flipping potential as say, a phone that's only available in 3 different colors.
For the current generation of very young kids, their first taste of video gaming is Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, Candy Crush, Temple Run and the like, played on their parents' mobile devices. They're not going to ask for a Nintendo when they're older; they'll ask for an iOS or Android device. The days of selling "kiddie" handhelds with QVGA screens and $40 games are numbered. I'm just glad Nintendo has finally decided to start rolling with the tide, rather than face being washed under, like Polaroid.
And back in 2007 you'd be telling us the iPhone would present no threat to BlackBerry. And before that you'd have told us that the iPod would pose no threat to other mp3 players. The sheer amount of fault predictions that Slashdot nerds have made about Apple are hilarious.
You're revising history as much as Apple revises their products. A $599 phone (with no subsidy discount), locked to one carrier, that can't run 3rd party applications, doesn't support MMS, has poor call quality and no 3G support was no threat to Blackberry. A $399, Mac-only, MP3 player that lacks USB was no threat to other MP3 players.
The iPod didn't become a genuine threat to competitors (and a runaway success) until hell froze over and Windows support was added. The iPhone didn't become a threat to competitors until Apple allowed AT&T to subsidize it. By the time the products had overcome their respective major roadblocks to widespread adoption, the current versions resembled their initial predecessors in name and physical appearance, but most of the missing capabilities the nerd peanut gallery derided them for, had been addressed.
If anything, this is a cautionary tale that while the Apple Watch may eventually be yet another blazing success story for Apple, the model that goes on sale on April 24th will be nothing like the updated version that catapults it to mainstream popularity. Of course, it could also flop. As they said on Mythbusters, "failure is always an option." Either way, it will be an amusing show, and I'm sure plenty of people will have their own revisionist history to write when it succeeds or fails.
iGadgets are prevalent, and soon shall be the most common means to access web sites. Get used to it or get used to be ridiculed for being an clueless old fart too stupid to figure out how to use a "view standard version" link or to realize that most sites automatically redirect to the standard version when a desktop browser is detected, as the parent's link did.
Many mobile sites don't offer the option to switch to "desktop view". Of those that do, it's fairly common to get thrown right back to the "mobile" view, after clicking on another link. The transition can also fail in any number of frustrating ways. I've seen sites that automatically re-direct back to the "mobile" view, or take you to the main homepage of the site, rather than shown the "desktop version" of the article you desired. Lately, user agent spoofing doesn't seem to be as effective; it seems sites are using some other browser metadata to determine if the user is a mobile device.
The irony is that a sub-$100 Windows 8.1 tablet with a 1280x800 resolution has no trouble viewing the real web, but a modern flagship smartphone with a Quad HD 2560x1440 display (hell, that's better than my laptop), gets stuck browsing the mobile web. I can only conclude that some web developers must simply hate smartphone users.
Oh, oops. Looks like they now have a family plan that includes 2 lines and unlimited LTE data for $100/mo now. That's $20/mo less than I've been paying, so I just switched to it.
Damn. Sorry about that, Cricket looked like it may have been a viable option for some people, but... well. Just... sorry. And thanks for prompting me to look into that; it's new since I looked last week.
T-Mobile has actually been running the two unlimited lines for $100 promotion, for a few months now. It's a good deal if it suits your needs and depending on what your state's wireless taxes cost, since taxes and fees are extra. T-Mobile should tell their customers when switching to a newly-released promotional plan would save them a few bucks, but that'd be akin to AT&T lowering your monthly rate if you didn't use your upgrade eligibility. In both cases, the carriers are just hoping a customer's ignorance will continue to fill the coffers.
Again, if you need truly unlimited, Cricket isn't an option. That's still no reason for people who use more modest amounts of data to pay extra for a higher data tier or unlimited plan that they don't actually need. Heck, a big part of the popularity of Ting (a Sprint MVNO run by Tucows) is that it can be extremely inexpensive for very light users.
Now that both phones are paid for, the bill is an additional $50/mo lower; mind you, we paid $650 apiece for the phones, but there were cheaper options if we wanted them; that's not relevant here, though, since you have to buy your phone on Cricket, as well.
I think you're getting the current Cricket, a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T, confused with the old Cricket (a regional CDMA carrier). They allow you to use any AT&T locked or unlocked GSM phone. The coverage is the same as AT&T's native (non-roaming) network. I use a iPhone 5S originally from Verizon, on Cricket; I certainly didn't have to buy one of their phones.
According to their rates chart, they don't offer unlimited.
T-Mobile and Sprint are the only games in town if you really need truly unlimited data. Once that becomes part of your selection criteria, you know what your options are.
I say nearly because Cricket will cut you off after 5GB, while T-Mobile will throttle, and Cricket no longer offers tethering, so really. No. they're just not a viable option.
Cricket throttles at 128Kbps, the same throttle speed as T-Mobile and Sprint. It's just as unusable on all carriers. You are correct, however, that Cricket does not offer any form of wireless hotspot/tethering add-on. They also don't do anything to stop you from tethering if your phone natively supports it, or if you've enabled it by way of rooting/jailbreaking.
More-or-less, MetroPCS (which is now a wholly owned subsidiary of T-Mobile) offers exactly what you're getting now on the same network, for $120/mo. That's two lines at the base price of $60/mo each, a $5 family plan discount on each line for having two lines, then a $5 fee on each line for adding mobile hotspot functionality to both lines.
What you'd lose is the ability to roam in the few places T-Mobile still has roaming agreements (looking at their map, I can't imagine where) and the ability to finance your next handsets. Is that worth $30/mo?
Slashdot Mirror
This is why you go to school and get a good education, so you can get a job that can't be replaced by a robot.
To paraphrase a line from The Incredibles, "When everyone is college educated - no one will be."
I'm not exactly thrilled at the prospect of living in a world where you'll need a 4 year college degree to bag groceries, because everyone in the transportation industry was put out of work by self-driving vehicles and drones. From the looks of things, we're not even that far off.
Much as a Fencing operation or a chop shop might occupy similar premises to legitimate businesses?
Bad analogy. A fencing operation or chop shop is taking possession of stolen property and re-selling it. It was more like Megaupload was a strip mall and they leased out space to legitimate businesses and a few chop shops.
eBay essentially gets away with the same thing (and takes 10% on each sale). You don't honestly think all these iPhones are from people who just forgot their iCloud password, do you?
Were you born a criminal sociopath and con-artist, or did you evolve into one?
You may personally dislike the guy, but running a public cloud storage service isn't supposed to be illegal. The service had substantial, non-infringing uses, which was previously the litmus test for whether a product exists solely to enable copyright infringement. Otherwise, we wouldn't have things like photocopiers, tape recorders, MP3 players, VCRs, DVRs, cameras, and pretty much every form of blank media.
Megaupload was used quite extensively for storing open source projects and homebrew Android ROMs. That alone should've demonstrated the service had substantial, non-infringing uses.
I understand that Megaupload was allegedly not acting on DMCA takedown requests as promptly as they should've. Still, that seems like something that should be handled with fines, not going all Gestapo by seizing the domain and servers. You wouldn't torch a restaurant to the ground for failing a health inspection, would you?
Chances are, your cable company and your ISP are one and the same. I have Earthlink through Brighthouse and they just raised the bill by $2 last month. It's now up to $45.95/mo, for 15Mbps down/1Mbps up. It seems the more people cut cords, the more the cable companies will push back by raising prices on "Internet only" service. I'd be thrilled to tell them where to stick it and switch to a less expensive competitor, except there isn't one. AT&T is the only other local broadband provider (very slow DSL) and their limited-time promotional rate only applies if you're signing up for bundled services.
It's foolish to think cable companies are just going to roll over and get used to lower profits. I'll bet a couple years from now, we'll all be paying about $90-$120 just for broadband and then paying Netflix/Amazon/Apple for TV service. We'll reminiscence about the good ol' days when that amount of money used to buy broadband access and cable TV service!
He bought something he doesn't know what ELSE to do with. But fine, be a jackass.
I've seen some idiotic "Ask Slashdot" stories, but this one probably takes the cake. To use the ever-popular car analogy, it's like asking "I just realized my car has a 12 volt electrical receptacle in the dashboard, what sort of things can I plug in?"
Yet another "Ask Slashdot" that can easily be solved by Google.
Why does this come up in every discussion?
Programming is not special. It does not require a "special mind" or other magical in-born trait.
Perhaps not, but it does require a certain mental disposition to enjoy (or at least tolerate) as a career. Most people simply don't want to spend 40+ hours per week, sitting at a desk, staring at code on a computer screen.
Why would *anyone* encourage their child, regardless of gender, to spend a decade or more training for what is quickly becoming a minimum-wage job at best.
This.
Coding jobs can be easily outsourced to wherever the going rate for labor is cheapest. Google's "coder shortage" seems completely imaginary. They're an advertising company whose greatest trick was convincing the world they are a software company.
Really, the only advantage to a dumphone is the inexpensive cost to replace it, should it become lost or broken. Most non-contract wireless providers with a "bring your own phone" option are perfectly happy letting you use a cheap plan on a modern flagship smartphone, so being a Luddite won't save you much on your monthly wireless bill.
Regarding battery life, the main reason smartphones don't have the endurance of dumbphones comes down to how people use them. If you turn off mobile data, WiFi, Bluetooth and background app refresh, even an iPhone 5 can go a week on standby. You could also just buy an extended battery, portable USB pack, car charger, solar charger, etc.
I suspect this is more about longing for the "good old days" when people didn't expect you to be reachable through e-mail and at least 3 different social networks. Sorry, but using a dumbphone won't bring those days back.
Next thing you know, they might develop big machines to replace covered wagons and plows. Then where will we be, when all those teamsters and farmers are put out of work?
It actually is pretty tough to make a living as a small farmer these days.
A functioning society requires jobs that pay a livable wage to people who, for whatever reason, aren't cut out for collage. These are the jobs that are rapidly vanishing, due to automation.
The industrial revolution brought high atmospheric CO2 levels, the likes of which haven't been seen on this planet in over 20 million years. There's no avoiding it, "progress" always comes at a cost.
If the police are actually responding to crap on Yik Yak, it won't be long before someone gets their jollies sending the police on wild goose chases. Of course, it isn't like it's easy to pick up a cheap burner phone, hop on an unsecured WiFi network and fake the phone's location. Whoops.
"Tomorrow at noon this place burns to the ground. I'll be driving a hot pink Tesla Model S, come at me, pigs."
Amusement worthy of 4chan ensues.
Don't get me wrong, I would LOVE to put solar panels on my house and stick it to the man and all. I just don't happen to have $30K laying around.
If you have access to grid power, photovoltaics are just a piss poor investment. Sure, there's the "going green" aspect of it, but ultimately it's still just an investment - you're spending money now in the hope of making more of it back over a period of time. You'll likely do better investing the same amount of money in the stock market and leave the electricity generation to the people with the big cooling towers.
"Bitcoin is about to blow up, because somewhere in bumfuckistan everyone is about to start using it!"
Translation:
"I foolishly invested in Bitcoin and would very much like it if the greater fool theory could work its magic, so I can cash out without too much of a loss, thanks."
Perhaps it is just the way my brain is wired, when I see a tattoo my brain instinctively registers it as "damage" and that the person may be injured or ill. Certainly others must have the same instinctive reaction, yet it seems even more people are doing that these days.
Trypophobia is a real thing, so it isn't far off to imagine the sight of a tattoo evoking a similar reaction in some people.
Not all tattoo inks are created equal. Many practitioners use ink from botanical sources.
Obviously, non-GMO botanical sources, otherwise they're not hipster enough.
Somewhere at a Chipotle, there's a hipster who can't order his non-GMO burrito with his Apple watch, because his tattoo is interfering with the security features. Oh, the irony.
Do not want.
Not sure why you got modded down, you made a valid point. Android used to be all about getting whichever phone had the features that best suited your needs. Now every flagship phone without a fruit on the back, is a freakin' phablet.
Yeah. Must be the buyers who are braindead, not people like yourself (and CmdrTaco) who can't see what Apple actually does bring to the table.
I fell for the hype and bought a first generation iPhone when Apple knocked $200 off the price. Because, what do you know, at the time they weren't actually selling like hotcakes.
Let's not forget, back then it didn't run apps, couldn't record video, had no stereo bluetooth, didn't do MMS and maxed out at EDGE speeds (when even dumbphones were beginning to ship with 3G). The battery life was lackluster, the reception and call quality was abysmal. Sure, mobile Safari was pretty awesome at the time compared to the competition - when it wasn't constantly crashing, that is.
Fast forward to today and while my phone is still technically an "iPhone", it bears only a superficial resemblance to the original model that I frequently found myself cursing at, back in the day. The battery life is tolerable, reception and call quality is excellent. The screen size has been increased and the pixel density has doubled. The cellular data connection is faster than my cable modem at home. Web pages render in the blink of an eye and Safari only seems to crash on me once in a blue moon. I don't feel like I'm missing out on any essential features - stereo bluetooth, MMS, front facing camera, 1080p video recording, the gang's all here. Heck, it even has a feature of dubious value which I don't even use - a fingerprint reader.
The Apple Watch could have some potential, but you'd be idiotic to believe that potential will be realized on first generation hardware. I've been burned enough times on first generation Apple products (Mac Mini, iPhone and the iPad) that I've decided to sit this one out. But hey, the way I look at it is: the idiots buying this thing today are subsidizing the development costs of the future model I might someday actually want.
Oh, who am I kidding? I loathe wearing a watch and I don't need one to tell me to look at my phone. The damn thing may as well be a pocket pager, for all intents and purposes.
This deal is good for some people, not good for others. If you think it'll work for you, sign up, if you don't, then don't. It seems more than a bit of a stretch to proclaim that the plan is a colossal failure because it does not meet your particular needs.
Don't know if you missed the part where it requires a Nexus 6. Due to Sprint being one of the network providers, it's also very likely to continue to be limited to "approved handsets" only, going forward. So, even if you think this is a great deal and the plans are up your alley, you still also have to want/already own a Nexus 6.
Personally, for my usage, Cricket's $35/mo plan is still a better deal. Plus, it runs on AT&T's network and I can use any unlocked GSM phone I want.
Sell the iPads at auction and sue the 3rd party software vendor for failing to deliver on their promises. Not sure if the news article is just daft or the school really thinks Apple should take back 120,000 used iPads because of what amounts to a case of very late (the article says this project started in 2013) buyer's remorse.
He does have some past experience dealing with trolls.
A million eBay traders; riiiiiiiight.
The people who make moronic comments about flipping hard-to-get gadgets on eBay have clearly never sold on eBay. Very often, the winning bidder turns out to be a non-paying deadbeat or a scammer, and then you're stuck waiting a few days on eBay to refund your end-of-sale & listing fees or arguing with PayPal. Even if you manage a successful sale, eBay takes 10% and PayPal takes somewhere around 2.9%.
As the Apple Watch comes in more combinations than a bag of mixed nuts, I doubt there's as much flipping potential as say, a phone that's only available in 3 different colors.
For the current generation of very young kids, their first taste of video gaming is Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, Candy Crush, Temple Run and the like, played on their parents' mobile devices. They're not going to ask for a Nintendo when they're older; they'll ask for an iOS or Android device. The days of selling "kiddie" handhelds with QVGA screens and $40 games are numbered. I'm just glad Nintendo has finally decided to start rolling with the tide, rather than face being washed under, like Polaroid.
And back in 2007 you'd be telling us the iPhone would present no threat to BlackBerry. And before that you'd have told us that the iPod would pose no threat to other mp3 players. The sheer amount of fault predictions that Slashdot nerds have made about Apple are hilarious.
You're revising history as much as Apple revises their products. A $599 phone (with no subsidy discount), locked to one carrier, that can't run 3rd party applications, doesn't support MMS, has poor call quality and no 3G support was no threat to Blackberry. A $399, Mac-only, MP3 player that lacks USB was no threat to other MP3 players.
The iPod didn't become a genuine threat to competitors (and a runaway success) until hell froze over and Windows support was added. The iPhone didn't become a threat to competitors until Apple allowed AT&T to subsidize it. By the time the products had overcome their respective major roadblocks to widespread adoption, the current versions resembled their initial predecessors in name and physical appearance, but most of the missing capabilities the nerd peanut gallery derided them for, had been addressed.
If anything, this is a cautionary tale that while the Apple Watch may eventually be yet another blazing success story for Apple, the model that goes on sale on April 24th will be nothing like the updated version that catapults it to mainstream popularity. Of course, it could also flop. As they said on Mythbusters, "failure is always an option." Either way, it will be an amusing show, and I'm sure plenty of people will have their own revisionist history to write when it succeeds or fails.
iGadgets are prevalent, and soon shall be the most common means to access web sites. Get used to it or get used to be ridiculed for being an clueless old fart too stupid to figure out how to use a "view standard version" link or to realize that most sites automatically redirect to the standard version when a desktop browser is detected, as the parent's link did.
Many mobile sites don't offer the option to switch to "desktop view". Of those that do, it's fairly common to get thrown right back to the "mobile" view, after clicking on another link. The transition can also fail in any number of frustrating ways. I've seen sites that automatically re-direct back to the "mobile" view, or take you to the main homepage of the site, rather than shown the "desktop version" of the article you desired. Lately, user agent spoofing doesn't seem to be as effective; it seems sites are using some other browser metadata to determine if the user is a mobile device.
The irony is that a sub-$100 Windows 8.1 tablet with a 1280x800 resolution has no trouble viewing the real web, but a modern flagship smartphone with a Quad HD 2560x1440 display (hell, that's better than my laptop), gets stuck browsing the mobile web. I can only conclude that some web developers must simply hate smartphone users.
Oh, oops. Looks like they now have a family plan that includes 2 lines and unlimited LTE data for $100/mo now. That's $20/mo less than I've been paying, so I just switched to it.
Damn. Sorry about that, Cricket looked like it may have been a viable option for some people, but... well. Just... sorry. And thanks for prompting me to look into that; it's new since I looked last week.
T-Mobile has actually been running the two unlimited lines for $100 promotion, for a few months now. It's a good deal if it suits your needs and depending on what your state's wireless taxes cost, since taxes and fees are extra. T-Mobile should tell their customers when switching to a newly-released promotional plan would save them a few bucks, but that'd be akin to AT&T lowering your monthly rate if you didn't use your upgrade eligibility. In both cases, the carriers are just hoping a customer's ignorance will continue to fill the coffers.
Again, if you need truly unlimited, Cricket isn't an option. That's still no reason for people who use more modest amounts of data to pay extra for a higher data tier or unlimited plan that they don't actually need. Heck, a big part of the popularity of Ting (a Sprint MVNO run by Tucows) is that it can be extremely inexpensive for very light users.
Now that both phones are paid for, the bill is an additional $50/mo lower; mind you, we paid $650 apiece for the phones, but there were cheaper options if we wanted them; that's not relevant here, though, since you have to buy your phone on Cricket, as well.
I think you're getting the current Cricket, a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T, confused with the old Cricket (a regional CDMA carrier). They allow you to use any AT&T locked or unlocked GSM phone. The coverage is the same as AT&T's native (non-roaming) network. I use a iPhone 5S originally from Verizon, on Cricket; I certainly didn't have to buy one of their phones.
According to their rates chart, they don't offer unlimited.
T-Mobile and Sprint are the only games in town if you really need truly unlimited data. Once that becomes part of your selection criteria, you know what your options are.
I say nearly because Cricket will cut you off after 5GB, while T-Mobile will throttle, and Cricket no longer offers tethering, so really. No. they're just not a viable option.
Cricket throttles at 128Kbps, the same throttle speed as T-Mobile and Sprint. It's just as unusable on all carriers. You are correct, however, that Cricket does not offer any form of wireless hotspot/tethering add-on. They also don't do anything to stop you from tethering if your phone natively supports it, or if you've enabled it by way of rooting/jailbreaking.
More-or-less, MetroPCS (which is now a wholly owned subsidiary of T-Mobile) offers exactly what you're getting now on the same network, for $120/mo. That's two lines at the base price of $60/mo each, a $5 family plan discount on each line for having two lines, then a $5 fee on each line for adding mobile hotspot functionality to both lines.
What you'd lose is the ability to roam in the few places T-Mobile still has roaming agreements (looking at their map, I can't imagine where) and the ability to finance your next handsets. Is that worth $30/mo?