A lot of modern apps have done away with the file menu... I also find cut+paste extremely irritating on windows, sometimes it ctrl+c and sometimes its shift+insert, sometimes theres a right click context menu, sometimes you cant even select the text until you active a select option, sometimes ctrl+c means something else - like kill...
Some places use smartcards, the card must be in the slot or it locks your screen... The same card is also used to open the doors so if you leave the room without taking the card then you can't get back in. Most people had the card attached to their belt or similar.
Another idea is to track the location of your phone using bluetooth (10 meters range), if you walk too far away it loses signal and locks the screen.
So you sign using the same ineligible scrawl you usually do with your own cards, the cashier won't check and the transaction will complete just fine, and you can still try to claim you used the wrong card by accident.
The OS is fully capable of multitasking... Third party apps developed through the official SDK and made available through the App Store are not allowed to multitask, this is an artificial limitation imposed by Apple. The built in apps, and third party apps written using the unofficial SDK installed in a jailbroken iphone are capable of multitasking.
Yes, but the problem is that IE is widespread enough, and its users ignorant enough, that they would assume google was to blame rather than the browser being antiquated.
I find a lot of commercial games have extremely buggy network play these days... I never got to finish a multiplayer game of rise of nations over the internet, because one player would always drop out for some reason and bring the whole game to an end.
It depends how much time you spend away from home... I also have a DS, but i usually forget to take it with me, i also have an ipod but again i always forgot to take it... I've had a phone for years, which i always remember to take with me so now when i find myself on or waiting for public transport, waiting for food, waiting for someone etc, i play games or listen to music on my phone. I would have my phone anyway, no point carrying around multiple devices.
Apple recognised that the increasing power of modern phones would eventually make the standalone ipod obsolete...
Silverlight is another exploitable object too... People concerned about security should probably be using the full blown chrome, which is generally regarded as having a better security model than other browsers.
In a large corporation, an attitude you describe will result in mediocre and/or lazy workers... I know several perfectly capable people who work in such environments simply because its easy, they blend into the background and collect their pay without doing very much work at all. Most of their colleagues are as you describe, mediocre or worse and are easily manipulated. They generally sit around doing their own thing all day, and their colleagues aren't smart enough to challenge them.
I don't think they will... Firefox. Opera and Safari are being actively developed and are all roughly in the same league with chrome when it comes to standards support and performance.. It is just IE that lags so far behind, and breaks support for things so badly that it puts a considerable burden on companies like google having to support it.
Aside from the fact that Safari even uses the same rendering engine as chrome.
Google don't really care what browser you use, they were pushing people to use firefox before chrome came out, they just don't want people using a browser as outdated and broken as ie because it makes their job so much harder and limits some of the things they'd want to do.
Multitasking is a strength relative to the competition? What competition are you comparing it to? The iphone, android, the pre and the n900 are all unix based, a system which was multitasking many years before any version of windows could. I would say windows mobile' underpinnings are actually very weak compared to other systems, it has a proprietary kernel thats not compatible with anything else and seems to suffer from major stability problems compared to the competition. Also, is it even a proper multiuser system? Even if you just have one user, you still want system processes/files to have a higher level of privilege so you can't screw with them.
Apple and RIM aren't trying to sell an OS, they are selling a hardware device that just happens to require an OS in order to function, and selling services around the devices.
Is it the HTML, or is it that microsoft browsers are typically 10 years behind everyone else when it comes to html standards support? Seriously, slashdot loads fine on my iphone, i quite regularly read it on the train to work.
It has a subset of similar APIs... It's effectively a completely unique os that uses the windows name to try and fool people into thinking it has some level of compatibility with the applications they already use...
OSX and Linux are actually much closer between their desktop and phone oriented versions, many applications can simply be recompiled (i have things like nmap on my phone for instance) tho it obviously makes a lot more sense if you design a new interface which is appropriate to the device.
In terms of interface, windows mobile has an interface designed for a desktop, which has been crudely kludged for use on a pda, and even more crudely kludged to try and make it work on the phone... The interface is just terrible.
And yes, you're right that they need a single place to find apps... But remember that's not the windows way, users should be expected to locate their apps manually by buying them in physical stores and downloading binaries from arbitrary websites... And then manually run a setup program and blindly click next a few times until it's installed.
Countless people on this very site have claimed that linux is unsuitable because it typically has a single simple place to find apps rather than doing things the same way windows does.
How do you work out who the manufacturer is and what their website is? When you download random binaries from some website in china (where most hardware is made) how do you know its legit?
Perhaps for external devices there will be branding on the case, but what about internal stuff like PCI cards?
Clued up users use apt-get because its quicker, users who are afraid of the cli can use synaptic package manager to do the same thing.. It's like an extended version of keyboard shortcuts.
Except that desktops are generally poor target systems for hackers, they have slow connections (especially slow upstream bandwidth on most consumer level connections), and are frequently rebooted or turned off when not in use...
Linux has a significant portion of the server market, especially when it comes to internet connected servers, and servers typically have a lot more bandwidth and are running 24/7, a lot of companies specialize in hosting dedicated or virtualized linux servers that are operated by clueless users through a web based gui and they never touch the shell and is thus extremely unlikely to notice what you're doing.
There are plenty of people out there trying to target linux machines, people were owning unix machines on the internet long before windows even had a tcp stack, and hackers often prefer unix machines because of the more powerful cli based tools (imagine a gui tunneled through multiple machines in different countries because your trying to hide your tracks).
Even more amusing is when people rely on group policies to enforce security policies... Group policies are only good for setting convenient defaults, they are not suitable for security settings... Many of these settings are implemented in userland applications rather than being enforced at the kernel level, so it is trivial to bypass them.
How about marketing the advantages of Linux to end users and corporate purchasers in a method they can understand? Dell might sell Ubuntu machines, but they don't offer it on the whole range and they don't advertise it, you have to go out of your way to find it...
As an example... Linux has package management, the iPhone has the App Store, both are very similar concepts from a user's perspective... Apple have marketed the App Store well and users love it, they would love having the ability to do the same on a full size computer too...
Google are doing this, because the prevalence of ie has hindered the delivery of web services for years and continues to do so. If ie disappeared today, you would see massive innovation in web services happen overnight, as developers no longer need to waste so much time trying to support such a crufty old browser, and can now use some of the modern feature every other browser has supported for years.
They would have to do it quick, before this plugin and apps that don't work in regular ie catch on... otherwise people will blame the update for breaking the apps they use, and either stick to an older version or switch to a more modern browser.
Being intuitive to a new user is one thing, but for such applications the existing users outnumber the new ones considerably... One of the strongest lock-in factors MS has is familiarity, i know countless people who refuse to try linux or mac because it's unfamiliar to them, and i also know several people who, with no prior computer experience, tried linux or mac first and found it easy. And i know several people who have been unix or mac users for years (myself included) who find windows extremely awkward and difficult to use.
You really do need to look under the hood and kick the tyres. Maybe it's a Ferrari on the outside, but it could be an Austin Maxi on the inside.
He contradicts himself, he tells you to kick the tyres and look under the hood, and then touts his product which he explicitly states won't let you look under the hood...
No, they're not... They have a large marketshare and are well known, but they are not a monopoly... The vast majority of people i know have non apple mp3 players (or non apple phones with mp3 playing support), and acquire their music from non apple sources (mostly illegal ones).
And now that itunes music is mostly drm free, there is nothing to stop you downloading music from itunes and putting it on another device, just because such devices don't integrate so easily with itunes doesn't mean it can't be done. Look at the zune music store, which sells drm encumbered music that really is tied to a single vendor's products, or it's predecessor the msn music store where all their customers just got cut off from their drm encumbered purchases overnight.
Apple aren't a monopoly, not in the market for portable music players and certainly not in any other market... There are tons of other music stores around from which you can acquire the same music, if you don't like Apple's terms or catalog of music, find somewhere else to get it from. I don't like the way Apple make you use their software to buy music, i would rather be able to download mp3 files using any browser, so i don't use itunes.
Incidentally, while you have to use itunes to purchase and download the music, once downloaded it's normal mp3/aac files these days without drm, so there is nothing to stop you putting those files onto any compatible playing device. There are far more anti-competitive music stores out there these days which are still using drm, go after the worst offenders first.
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A lot of modern apps have done away with the file menu...
I also find cut+paste extremely irritating on windows, sometimes it ctrl+c and sometimes its shift+insert, sometimes theres a right click context menu, sometimes you cant even select the text until you active a select option, sometimes ctrl+c means something else - like kill...
Some places use smartcards, the card must be in the slot or it locks your screen... The same card is also used to open the doors so if you leave the room without taking the card then you can't get back in. Most people had the card attached to their belt or similar.
Another idea is to track the location of your phone using bluetooth (10 meters range), if you walk too far away it loses signal and locks the screen.
So you sign using the same ineligible scrawl you usually do with your own cards, the cashier won't check and the transaction will complete just fine, and you can still try to claim you used the wrong card by accident.
The OS is fully capable of multitasking...
Third party apps developed through the official SDK and made available through the App Store are not allowed to multitask, this is an artificial limitation imposed by Apple.
The built in apps, and third party apps written using the unofficial SDK installed in a jailbroken iphone are capable of multitasking.
Yes, but the problem is that IE is widespread enough, and its users ignorant enough, that they would assume google was to blame rather than the browser being antiquated.
I find a lot of commercial games have extremely buggy network play these days... I never got to finish a multiplayer game of rise of nations over the internet, because one player would always drop out for some reason and bring the whole game to an end.
It depends how much time you spend away from home...
I also have a DS, but i usually forget to take it with me, i also have an ipod but again i always forgot to take it... I've had a phone for years, which i always remember to take with me so now when i find myself on or waiting for public transport, waiting for food, waiting for someone etc, i play games or listen to music on my phone. I would have my phone anyway, no point carrying around multiple devices.
Apple recognised that the increasing power of modern phones would eventually make the standalone ipod obsolete...
Silverlight is another exploitable object too...
People concerned about security should probably be using the full blown chrome, which is generally regarded as having a better security model than other browsers.
In a large corporation, an attitude you describe will result in mediocre and/or lazy workers...
I know several perfectly capable people who work in such environments simply because its easy, they blend into the background and collect their pay without doing very much work at all. Most of their colleagues are as you describe, mediocre or worse and are easily manipulated.
They generally sit around doing their own thing all day, and their colleagues aren't smart enough to challenge them.
I don't think they will...
Firefox. Opera and Safari are being actively developed and are all roughly in the same league with chrome when it comes to standards support and performance.. It is just IE that lags so far behind, and breaks support for things so badly that it puts a considerable burden on companies like google having to support it.
Aside from the fact that Safari even uses the same rendering engine as chrome.
Google don't really care what browser you use, they were pushing people to use firefox before chrome came out, they just don't want people using a browser as outdated and broken as ie because it makes their job so much harder and limits some of the things they'd want to do.
Multitasking is a strength relative to the competition? What competition are you comparing it to?
The iphone, android, the pre and the n900 are all unix based, a system which was multitasking many years before any version of windows could.
I would say windows mobile' underpinnings are actually very weak compared to other systems, it has a proprietary kernel thats not compatible with anything else and seems to suffer from major stability problems compared to the competition. Also, is it even a proper multiuser system? Even if you just have one user, you still want system processes/files to have a higher level of privilege so you can't screw with them.
Apple and RIM aren't trying to sell an OS, they are selling a hardware device that just happens to require an OS in order to function, and selling services around the devices.
Not a digital one...
Is it the HTML, or is it that microsoft browsers are typically 10 years behind everyone else when it comes to html standards support?
Seriously, slashdot loads fine on my iphone, i quite regularly read it on the train to work.
It has a subset of similar APIs... It's effectively a completely unique os that uses the windows name to try and fool people into thinking it has some level of compatibility with the applications they already use...
OSX and Linux are actually much closer between their desktop and phone oriented versions, many applications can simply be recompiled (i have things like nmap on my phone for instance) tho it obviously makes a lot more sense if you design a new interface which is appropriate to the device.
In terms of interface, windows mobile has an interface designed for a desktop, which has been crudely kludged for use on a pda, and even more crudely kludged to try and make it work on the phone... The interface is just terrible.
And yes, you're right that they need a single place to find apps... But remember that's not the windows way, users should be expected to locate their apps manually by buying them in physical stores and downloading binaries from arbitrary websites... And then manually run a setup program and blindly click next a few times until it's installed.
Countless people on this very site have claimed that linux is unsuitable because it typically has a single simple place to find apps rather than doing things the same way windows does.
How do you work out who the manufacturer is and what their website is?
When you download random binaries from some website in china (where most hardware is made) how do you know its legit?
Perhaps for external devices there will be branding on the case, but what about internal stuff like PCI cards?
Clued up users use apt-get because its quicker, users who are afraid of the cli can use synaptic package manager to do the same thing.. It's like an extended version of keyboard shortcuts.
Except that desktops are generally poor target systems for hackers, they have slow connections (especially slow upstream bandwidth on most consumer level connections), and are frequently rebooted or turned off when not in use...
Linux has a significant portion of the server market, especially when it comes to internet connected servers, and servers typically have a lot more bandwidth and are running 24/7, a lot of companies specialize in hosting dedicated or virtualized linux servers that are operated by clueless users through a web based gui and they never touch the shell and is thus extremely unlikely to notice what you're doing.
There are plenty of people out there trying to target linux machines, people were owning unix machines on the internet long before windows even had a tcp stack, and hackers often prefer unix machines because of the more powerful cli based tools (imagine a gui tunneled through multiple machines in different countries because your trying to hide your tracks).
Even more amusing is when people rely on group policies to enforce security policies...
Group policies are only good for setting convenient defaults, they are not suitable for security settings... Many of these settings are implemented in userland applications rather than being enforced at the kernel level, so it is trivial to bypass them.
How about marketing the advantages of Linux to end users and corporate purchasers in a method they can understand?
Dell might sell Ubuntu machines, but they don't offer it on the whole range and they don't advertise it, you have to go out of your way to find it...
As an example...
Linux has package management, the iPhone has the App Store, both are very similar concepts from a user's perspective... Apple have marketed the App Store well and users love it, they would love having the ability to do the same on a full size computer too...
Google are doing this, because the prevalence of ie has hindered the delivery of web services for years and continues to do so. If ie disappeared today, you would see massive innovation in web services happen overnight, as developers no longer need to waste so much time trying to support such a crufty old browser, and can now use some of the modern feature every other browser has supported for years.
They would have to do it quick, before this plugin and apps that don't work in regular ie catch on... otherwise people will blame the update for breaking the apps they use, and either stick to an older version or switch to a more modern browser.
Being intuitive to a new user is one thing, but for such applications the existing users outnumber the new ones considerably...
One of the strongest lock-in factors MS has is familiarity, i know countless people who refuse to try linux or mac because it's unfamiliar to them, and i also know several people who, with no prior computer experience, tried linux or mac first and found it easy.
And i know several people who have been unix or mac users for years (myself included) who find windows extremely awkward and difficult to use.
You really do need to look under the hood and kick the tyres. Maybe it's a Ferrari on the outside, but it could be an Austin Maxi on the inside.
He contradicts himself, he tells you to kick the tyres and look under the hood, and then touts his product which he explicitly states won't let you look under the hood...
No, they're not...
They have a large marketshare and are well known, but they are not a monopoly... The vast majority of people i know have non apple mp3 players (or non apple phones with mp3 playing support), and acquire their music from non apple sources (mostly illegal ones).
And now that itunes music is mostly drm free, there is nothing to stop you downloading music from itunes and putting it on another device, just because such devices don't integrate so easily with itunes doesn't mean it can't be done. Look at the zune music store, which sells drm encumbered music that really is tied to a single vendor's products, or it's predecessor the msn music store where all their customers just got cut off from their drm encumbered purchases overnight.
Apple aren't a monopoly, not in the market for portable music players and certainly not in any other market...
There are tons of other music stores around from which you can acquire the same music, if you don't like Apple's terms or catalog of music, find somewhere else to get it from.
I don't like the way Apple make you use their software to buy music, i would rather be able to download mp3 files using any browser, so i don't use itunes.
Incidentally, while you have to use itunes to purchase and download the music, once downloaded it's normal mp3/aac files these days without drm, so there is nothing to stop you putting those files onto any compatible playing device. There are far more anti-competitive music stores out there these days which are still using drm, go after the worst offenders first.