Haha, I say this all the time, but if people went on features and price (what they probably would truly want if they paid attention) they would NOT be chosing ipods.
Apple "fanboys" are so silly because so much of Apple is marketing, marketing, and more marketing and not some super magical quality of the products. Maybe OS X is nice (I don't use it, so I can't comment) but the other products themselves are very overpriced and lack features and aren't much easier to use than competing products. Again, compare Ipods to many other MP3 players on the market. Ipods are more "hip" and "cool" to college-aged chumps which is why they sell; people who look and buy on features etc do not generally choose ipods.
I predict that rather than giving examples of the features you ask for (which shouldn't be hard, if they actually exist), people will instead either mod you down for daring to criticise Apple, or respond with vague claims of "but it integrates better", or "it Just Works". There'll be a lot of waffle claiming how their products are better, without actually containing any information. It's like marketing spin from companies, without any useful product info. Or the sort of Government spin you expect from politicians. "It's better, it just is, it does what I want."
With the iPod and iTunes, Apple hit the "sweet spot" where the player was just good enough technically and had just enough features, and the set was easy enough to use that everyone except the most rabid anti-Apple zealots found something to like. I have a friend who still carries an irrational hatred for Apple, left over from the days of 6502 machines in the 1980s (C=64 owner who for some reason felt he had to hate Apple machines), and even he has an iPod. He, like me, is a nerd, and he did try some other digital music players, but the iPod-iTunes experience is sufficiently better that even he had to swallow bile and buy an iPod.
If these so-called zealots were happy to buy an Ipod because they liked it, it suggests to me that their dislike of other Apple products wasn't so irrational after all. If it was irrational hatred, why would they then buy this one thing from Apple? Sometimes, people dislike products because, you know, they actually don't like the products. Labelling them zealots because of that is itself rather irrational.
I agree - although sadly, the UK already collects and keeps fingerprints (and DNA) from anyone arrested, even if not charged, or found not guilty.
Incidentally, for those people in this thread laying all the blame on the EU, it was the European Court of Human Rights that recently found this to be unlawful.
Having said that, I've yet to hear any plans from the Government to change the system, or destroying the samples that are being unlawfully kept, rather they're just making some vague claims about looking into changing the system. Evidently it's okay for Governments to break the law - imagine the same system for individuals? "What's that officer, I'm breaking the law? Well don't mind me, I'll just carry on breaking the law, and maybe look into seeing how I can change my behaviour at some point in the future. That's okay, isn't it?"
I wish I could share your optimisim. Whatever current polls are on the UK's ID card scheme may or may not say, the Government is still moving full steam ahead with ID cards, the national database, and biometric passports.
Even though the Conservatives say they will scrap the scheme, I still fear that we'll be too far down the road, or they'll still want biometric passports.
With a bit of luck, it'll finally bring down the catastrophe that is centrally dictated European policy
It's not a European issue - the UK Government are just as keen for these policies, as you should know from their ID card scheme. More generally, the Government have removed many civil liberties over the years, and continue to do so - the European Convention on Human Rights is the only hope of challenging some of these changes.
They become a lot more unpopular when people realise how much they have to pay for them - though sadly by that time, it's already implemented and they've got no choice but to go along with it.
Unfortunately until that point, most people are fooled into equating the UK's ID card scheme with "card with your name and photo on it that they'll give you for free or at a minimal cost".
Why would you possibly think that? With the ease of modern communication methods, there is much less need for the average business person to actually travel aboard to conduct business.
From a personal point of view, I think it's true. Firsly there's the point that people travel more anyway than the 70s, due to greater standards of living, but in terms of wanting to meet a specific person - yes there's greater communication means, but that's exactly why: people still want to meet people that they communicate with. If I met a girl from America in the 70s, it'd be a holiday fling, and that's it. Now easier and better means of communication make a long distance relationship possible. But nobody thinks "Ah, I don't need to meet up now". On the contrary, you meet up where as before you'd have never kept in contact at all.
From a business point of view, I admit I don't know - how does the amount of travel now compare with the 70s? Whilst one might think there is less need to travel, on the other hand there's a greater amount of interaction required. Firstly due to more multinational companies, but also, I'd imagine that companies are more likely to spread work between different countries. Again, it's those new communication methods which result in more travel: e.g., at my work we routinely communicate with several countries. Yes, we can do it rather than travelling, but the point is that 30 years ago, it wasn't that we travelled instead, rather, we didn't do that work at all. Now, we have workloads spread across different countries, and sometimes someone still needs to travel.
I don't think shipping from other countries makes much impact, because I'm not sure that many people in the 70s travelled to different countries just to buy a product. Again, the new methods haven't replaced travel, they've just allowed things that people simply didn't do before.
Well sure, I agree that there are reasons to care about the requirements even if you don't care about going. That was just a throwaway comment - my point is that "caring about requirements" doesn't imply "not caring about going", and many people may care so much about the requirements because they care about going.
I was thinking this too - given that this is "instead of filling out paper forms in flight or at the airport", then that does have some advantages. As well as your point, being refused beforehand would at least be not as much hassle as being refused when you've already travelled to the US (I always thought that was a dumb system). Also, one can attempt to handle issues that are shown up in advance when you're safely in your own country - as opposed to fearing that you might be searched/arrested/etc if you happen to say the wrong thing.
I guess the downside is people who don't know about this, or what if you have confusion over a question - will there be terminals available at airports to fill these in? And what about the 72 hour requirement?
When I came to this country in the early 1970s it was required that we get visa's and passports, present them at the U.S. border, fill out extensive forms documenting our stay etc.
Sure - but saying that the political clock's been turned back 30-40 years isn't exactly something to be thrilled about. That's an immense step backwards. I'd like to think we'd move towards a society with easier movement in time, especially given that there is far more intercontinental communication between people (both business, and personal) than decades ago.
If you are going to be deterred from coming to the US over the requirement that you register online and cough up some fingerprints I suppose you really didn't care that much about coming in the first place anyway, did you?
This is a fallacy. If he cares about not handing over his fingerprints to foreign Governments, that doesn't imply he doesn't care about going to the country. On the contrary, if he didn't care about going, why would he care about the requirements?
but our entry/exit requirements still aren't that onerous compared to other countries I can think of.
Ah, it's the "But there are worse countries!" argument. Well sure there are worse countries - not exactly a ringing endorsement. Chances are the OP doesn't go there, either.
Whilst I'm suspicious of this study, I'm not sure what you say is really true. Given how many Google searches I do a day, it clearly isn't true that I'd have driven to a library for every single one. In most cases, I'd look it up in a book at home, or do without.
I suspect that very few searches that people do are for the purpose of academic search.
Okay, so if we take the market as being "phones + mp3 players", then the Iphone is an even smaller product in that market.
As far as the rest of your original comment, I think the part on which the disagreement rests is that the iPhone has a lot of mindshare right now, in fact a lot more mindshare than it has marketshare. If you ask a random person off the street, "what's the best cellphone you can buy", there's a good chance you will hear "iPhone".
And your evidence for this claim is?
Even if it were the best phone in the world, I would have a hard time learning to trust them again.
Same reason I don't touch Apple with a bargepole - their previous products (mainly the original Mac OS, not to mention Quicktime) were abysmal.
He was bending over backwards to be polite and helpful, referring him to someone who would be able to fix the problem, and using his own time to do so, free of charge. This was in response to someone who was harrassing and threatening him, all the while using his software free of charge. It isn't the job of random open source developers to provide education for incompetent politicians - especially when those politicians are refusing to listen, anyway.
Nowhere does it mention the "ultimate feature list" - just "everything the iPhone does"
Forget I said "ultimate feature list" if you prefer - what I mean is, the double standard is that the Palm is expected to do "everything the Iphone does", whilst it's okay for the Iphone to miss out features that other phones have.
(not to hard if, as you seem to think, the iPhone is missing so many features) and "do it better" (not "do more").
This doesn't make sense - the OP claimed that the Palm must, at least, do everything that the Iphone does, and not the features that it is missing. And hardness or not is irrelevant - if implementing features isn't hard, why is the Iphone excused for not doing so?
Yes, that's what people often say when they encounter "good design", which includes things like logical and consistent layouts, responsiveness and not cramming in a mugs eyeful of features, half of which are barely usable.
Anyone can make claims like this. I claim the Palm will be the best phone, because it's designed well, it just works, and although it doesn't do anything new, it does them in a way that's better. See? It's marketing buzzwords that contain no information or evidence on what is actually different.
Good design most certainly can be described in objective terms - at least, this is the case for every other product. But again, the double standard is that Apple is excused from this.
The point about open source is that you are free to do this yourself. Otherwise, one might as well winge that Firefox isn't truely taking advantage of open source, unless someone ports it to the Amiga for you.
Talking of "playing catch-up", who cares if it is having to catch up? No one complained when Firefox was playing catch-up to Opera that had been around years before - no, people were glad to have a new browser (especially an open source one) around. For some reason, the same argument doesn't seem to work for Chrome.
Oh noes! A company that allows companies to advertise! How dare they support open source, and give away their software for free?
I'm guessing that Chrome will never have AdBlock Plus and NoScript.
Evidence please?
For heaven's sake. I'm no fan of adverts either, but Google ads are the most unintrusive adverts I've seen. What are you doing reading Slashdot, which has far more annoying adverts on the page? (Yes, you probably block them - but the point is that Slashdot still "supports" advertising, and your argument seems to be about opposing Google's free releases based on ideological reasons.)
Do you not use Google for search OOI? What do you recommend instead - is Altavista still around?
Well that's exactly the point - you prefer the Iphone, whilst I and others are happy using other phones. Claims like "Finally matches the Iphone" need backing up with objective reasons, not subjective preferences like "it's smooth, and not meh".
Not to mention that this is only restricted to "smartphones", but these days the boundary between "smart" and other phones is a lot more blurred - most phones can run applications (Java, but it's still useable), browse the web, do email and so on. This market is (presumably) far larger, and the Iphone is a tiny player in it - but they won't show up on this chart, because they have their own custom OS, or aren't considered "smart" phones.
You're assuming that "dominant position" means "top selling". There are other forms of dominance - one of which is illustrated by the fact that we're having this discussion at all. The iPhone has become the benchmark against which any new smartphone is judged by the press and blogosphere.
Yes, I don't deny that Apple are kings when it comes to hype and getting free media attention.
But really - when we talk about killer products in the market place, we're talking market share, and not how many "bloggers" blog about it. If you want to say that lots of "bloggers" hype the Iphone on the "blogosphere", then you will have no disagreement from me.
Thing is, Apple don't try for the ultimate feature list: they decide which features most people will actually want, and implement them well.
Thank you for proving my point about the double standard. The OP criticised Palm for not having an ultimate feature list (insisting it do everything the Iphone does, and more). But here you argue that for the Iphone, what features it has or doesn't have doesn't matter, so long as people think it's done in a cool way (I say "cool", because no one ever explains how it's done better, instead just referring to subjective preferences "I like it better, I don't know why, it Just Is").
(But to comment on what you say: I've only sent a couple of MMS, but I was glad I could, rather than having to go "Sorry, I can't do that - I'm an Apple user" and then wondering why I'm having to make compromises on a phone that costs far more than the phone I did get. Which has copy and paste, video recording, Java, and a good enough web browser.)
Copy-and-paste is a fundamental UI feature. Given that the UI is the only thing that is supposed to be special about the Iphone, it is a relevant point.
MMS usage may be rare, but it should still be there on those rare times I use it. I don't want to have to go "Oh, I can't do that - I'm an Apple user". Perhaps I'd accept compromises on a budget phone, but not at the Iphone's price level!
I make no comment on how good the Palm phone is, but I see no evidence that it's only as good as 6 month old phones. On the contrary, the article claims they better it (and it's not clear that Palm themselves refer to the Iphone, anyway). All new phones compare themselves to the phones on the market, because that's the only way people can judge them. But it doesn't follow that products never get any better! Obviously, they do.
I somehow suspect that Palm have worked out that phone manufacturers (not just Apple, you know) will be releasing new phones too.
Apple themselves joined the market late (and far later than Palm) - did anyone complain that "it seems more of a desperation move to keep slightly relevant, by at least staying the game with a product in the same generation as everyone else"? After all, the Iphone could only compare itself to existing phones too (and if anything, it was a generation behind, not supporting 3G until later).
Slashdot Mirror
Haha, I say this all the time, but if people went on features and price (what they probably would truly want if they paid attention) they would NOT be chosing ipods.
Apple "fanboys" are so silly because so much of Apple is marketing, marketing, and more marketing and not some super magical quality of the products. Maybe OS X is nice (I don't use it, so I can't comment) but the other products themselves are very overpriced and lack features and aren't much easier to use than competing products. Again, compare Ipods to many other MP3 players on the market. Ipods are more "hip" and "cool" to college-aged chumps which is why they sell; people who look and buy on features etc do not generally choose ipods.
I predict that rather than giving examples of the features you ask for (which shouldn't be hard, if they actually exist), people will instead either mod you down for daring to criticise Apple, or respond with vague claims of "but it integrates better", or "it Just Works". There'll be a lot of waffle claiming how their products are better, without actually containing any information. It's like marketing spin from companies, without any useful product info. Or the sort of Government spin you expect from politicians. "It's better, it just is, it does what I want."
With the iPod and iTunes, Apple hit the "sweet spot" where the player was just good enough technically and had just enough features, and the set was easy enough to use that everyone except the most rabid anti-Apple zealots found something to like. I have a friend who still carries an irrational hatred for Apple, left over from the days of 6502 machines in the 1980s (C=64 owner who for some reason felt he had to hate Apple machines), and even he has an iPod. He, like me, is a nerd, and he did try some other digital music players, but the iPod-iTunes experience is sufficiently better that even he had to swallow bile and buy an iPod.
If these so-called zealots were happy to buy an Ipod because they liked it, it suggests to me that their dislike of other Apple products wasn't so irrational after all. If it was irrational hatred, why would they then buy this one thing from Apple? Sometimes, people dislike products because, you know, they actually don't like the products. Labelling them zealots because of that is itself rather irrational.
Including their laptops, OOI?
I agree - although sadly, the UK already collects and keeps fingerprints (and DNA) from anyone arrested, even if not charged, or found not guilty.
Incidentally, for those people in this thread laying all the blame on the EU, it was the European Court of Human Rights that recently found this to be unlawful.
Having said that, I've yet to hear any plans from the Government to change the system, or destroying the samples that are being unlawfully kept, rather they're just making some vague claims about looking into changing the system. Evidently it's okay for Governments to break the law - imagine the same system for individuals? "What's that officer, I'm breaking the law? Well don't mind me, I'll just carry on breaking the law, and maybe look into seeing how I can change my behaviour at some point in the future. That's okay, isn't it?"
I wish I could share your optimisim. Whatever current polls are on the UK's ID card scheme may or may not say, the Government is still moving full steam ahead with ID cards, the national database, and biometric passports.
Even though the Conservatives say they will scrap the scheme, I still fear that we'll be too far down the road, or they'll still want biometric passports.
With a bit of luck, it'll finally bring down the catastrophe that is centrally dictated European policy
It's not a European issue - the UK Government are just as keen for these policies, as you should know from their ID card scheme. More generally, the Government have removed many civil liberties over the years, and continue to do so - the European Convention on Human Rights is the only hope of challenging some of these changes.
They become a lot more unpopular when people realise how much they have to pay for them - though sadly by that time, it's already implemented and they've got no choice but to go along with it.
Unfortunately until that point, most people are fooled into equating the UK's ID card scheme with "card with your name and photo on it that they'll give you for free or at a minimal cost".
Why would you possibly think that? With the ease of modern communication methods, there is much less need for the average business person to actually travel aboard to conduct business.
From a personal point of view, I think it's true. Firsly there's the point that people travel more anyway than the 70s, due to greater standards of living, but in terms of wanting to meet a specific person - yes there's greater communication means, but that's exactly why: people still want to meet people that they communicate with. If I met a girl from America in the 70s, it'd be a holiday fling, and that's it. Now easier and better means of communication make a long distance relationship possible. But nobody thinks "Ah, I don't need to meet up now". On the contrary, you meet up where as before you'd have never kept in contact at all.
From a business point of view, I admit I don't know - how does the amount of travel now compare with the 70s? Whilst one might think there is less need to travel, on the other hand there's a greater amount of interaction required. Firstly due to more multinational companies, but also, I'd imagine that companies are more likely to spread work between different countries. Again, it's those new communication methods which result in more travel: e.g., at my work we routinely communicate with several countries. Yes, we can do it rather than travelling, but the point is that 30 years ago, it wasn't that we travelled instead, rather, we didn't do that work at all. Now, we have workloads spread across different countries, and sometimes someone still needs to travel.
I don't think shipping from other countries makes much impact, because I'm not sure that many people in the 70s travelled to different countries just to buy a product. Again, the new methods haven't replaced travel, they've just allowed things that people simply didn't do before.
Well sure, I agree that there are reasons to care about the requirements even if you don't care about going. That was just a throwaway comment - my point is that "caring about requirements" doesn't imply "not caring about going", and many people may care so much about the requirements because they care about going.
I was thinking this too - given that this is "instead of filling out paper forms in flight or at the airport", then that does have some advantages. As well as your point, being refused beforehand would at least be not as much hassle as being refused when you've already travelled to the US (I always thought that was a dumb system). Also, one can attempt to handle issues that are shown up in advance when you're safely in your own country - as opposed to fearing that you might be searched/arrested/etc if you happen to say the wrong thing.
I guess the downside is people who don't know about this, or what if you have confusion over a question - will there be terminals available at airports to fill these in? And what about the 72 hour requirement?
When I came to this country in the early 1970s it was required that we get visa's and passports, present them at the U.S. border, fill out extensive forms documenting our stay etc.
Sure - but saying that the political clock's been turned back 30-40 years isn't exactly something to be thrilled about. That's an immense step backwards. I'd like to think we'd move towards a society with easier movement in time, especially given that there is far more intercontinental communication between people (both business, and personal) than decades ago.
If you are going to be deterred from coming to the US over the requirement that you register online and cough up some fingerprints I suppose you really didn't care that much about coming in the first place anyway, did you?
This is a fallacy. If he cares about not handing over his fingerprints to foreign Governments, that doesn't imply he doesn't care about going to the country. On the contrary, if he didn't care about going, why would he care about the requirements?
but our entry/exit requirements still aren't that onerous compared to other countries I can think of.
Ah, it's the "But there are worse countries!" argument. Well sure there are worse countries - not exactly a ringing endorsement. Chances are the OP doesn't go there, either.
Whilst I'm suspicious of this study, I'm not sure what you say is really true. Given how many Google searches I do a day, it clearly isn't true that I'd have driven to a library for every single one. In most cases, I'd look it up in a book at home, or do without.
I suspect that very few searches that people do are for the purpose of academic search.
Okay, so if we take the market as being "phones + mp3 players", then the Iphone is an even smaller product in that market.
As far as the rest of your original comment, I think the part on which the disagreement rests is that the iPhone has a lot of mindshare right now, in fact a lot more mindshare than it has marketshare. If you ask a random person off the street, "what's the best cellphone you can buy", there's a good chance you will hear "iPhone".
And your evidence for this claim is?
Even if it were the best phone in the world, I would have a hard time learning to trust them again.
Same reason I don't touch Apple with a bargepole - their previous products (mainly the original Mac OS, not to mention Quicktime) were abysmal.
He was bending over backwards to be polite and helpful, referring him to someone who would be able to fix the problem, and using his own time to do so, free of charge. This was in response to someone who was harrassing and threatening him, all the while using his software free of charge. It isn't the job of random open source developers to provide education for incompetent politicians - especially when those politicians are refusing to listen, anyway.
Nowhere does it mention the "ultimate feature list" - just "everything the iPhone does"
Forget I said "ultimate feature list" if you prefer - what I mean is, the double standard is that the Palm is expected to do "everything the Iphone does", whilst it's okay for the Iphone to miss out features that other phones have.
(not to hard if, as you seem to think, the iPhone is missing so many features) and "do it better" (not "do more").
This doesn't make sense - the OP claimed that the Palm must, at least, do everything that the Iphone does, and not the features that it is missing. And hardness or not is irrelevant - if implementing features isn't hard, why is the Iphone excused for not doing so?
Yes, that's what people often say when they encounter "good design", which includes things like logical and consistent layouts, responsiveness and not cramming in a mugs eyeful of features, half of which are barely usable.
Anyone can make claims like this. I claim the Palm will be the best phone, because it's designed well, it just works, and although it doesn't do anything new, it does them in a way that's better. See? It's marketing buzzwords that contain no information or evidence on what is actually different.
Good design most certainly can be described in objective terms - at least, this is the case for every other product. But again, the double standard is that Apple is excused from this.
The point about open source is that you are free to do this yourself. Otherwise, one might as well winge that Firefox isn't truely taking advantage of open source, unless someone ports it to the Amiga for you.
Talking of "playing catch-up", who cares if it is having to catch up? No one complained when Firefox was playing catch-up to Opera that had been around years before - no, people were glad to have a new browser (especially an open source one) around. For some reason, the same argument doesn't seem to work for Chrome.
Oh noes! A company that allows companies to advertise! How dare they support open source, and give away their software for free?
I'm guessing that Chrome will never have AdBlock Plus and NoScript.
Evidence please?
For heaven's sake. I'm no fan of adverts either, but Google ads are the most unintrusive adverts I've seen. What are you doing reading Slashdot, which has far more annoying adverts on the page? (Yes, you probably block them - but the point is that Slashdot still "supports" advertising, and your argument seems to be about opposing Google's free releases based on ideological reasons.)
Do you not use Google for search OOI? What do you recommend instead - is Altavista still around?
It'll just be a matter of preference anyway
Well that's exactly the point - you prefer the Iphone, whilst I and others are happy using other phones. Claims like "Finally matches the Iphone" need backing up with objective reasons, not subjective preferences like "it's smooth, and not meh".
Eh? Where did I say "iPod market"?
I mean the "mp3 player market", as opposed to the "phone market".
Thanks for the info, that's useful to read.
Not to mention that this is only restricted to "smartphones", but these days the boundary between "smart" and other phones is a lot more blurred - most phones can run applications (Java, but it's still useable), browse the web, do email and so on. This market is (presumably) far larger, and the Iphone is a tiny player in it - but they won't show up on this chart, because they have their own custom OS, or aren't considered "smart" phones.
You're assuming that "dominant position" means "top selling". There are other forms of dominance - one of which is illustrated by the fact that we're having this discussion at all. The iPhone has become the benchmark against which any new smartphone is judged by the press and blogosphere.
Yes, I don't deny that Apple are kings when it comes to hype and getting free media attention.
But really - when we talk about killer products in the market place, we're talking market share, and not how many "bloggers" blog about it. If you want to say that lots of "bloggers" hype the Iphone on the "blogosphere", then you will have no disagreement from me.
Thing is, Apple don't try for the ultimate feature list: they decide which features most people will actually want, and implement them well.
Thank you for proving my point about the double standard. The OP criticised Palm for not having an ultimate feature list (insisting it do everything the Iphone does, and more). But here you argue that for the Iphone, what features it has or doesn't have doesn't matter, so long as people think it's done in a cool way (I say "cool", because no one ever explains how it's done better, instead just referring to subjective preferences "I like it better, I don't know why, it Just Is").
(But to comment on what you say: I've only sent a couple of MMS, but I was glad I could, rather than having to go "Sorry, I can't do that - I'm an Apple user" and then wondering why I'm having to make compromises on a phone that costs far more than the phone I did get. Which has copy and paste, video recording, Java, and a good enough web browser.)
Copy-and-paste is a fundamental UI feature. Given that the UI is the only thing that is supposed to be special about the Iphone, it is a relevant point.
MMS usage may be rare, but it should still be there on those rare times I use it. I don't want to have to go "Oh, I can't do that - I'm an Apple user". Perhaps I'd accept compromises on a budget phone, but not at the Iphone's price level!
I make no comment on how good the Palm phone is, but I see no evidence that it's only as good as 6 month old phones. On the contrary, the article claims they better it (and it's not clear that Palm themselves refer to the Iphone, anyway). All new phones compare themselves to the phones on the market, because that's the only way people can judge them. But it doesn't follow that products never get any better! Obviously, they do.
I somehow suspect that Palm have worked out that phone manufacturers (not just Apple, you know) will be releasing new phones too.
Apple themselves joined the market late (and far later than Palm) - did anyone complain that "it seems more of a desperation move to keep slightly relevant, by at least staying the game with a product in the same generation as everyone else"? After all, the Iphone could only compare itself to existing phones too (and if anything, it was a generation behind, not supporting 3G until later).
In case you didn't see it, see my reply to the comment above: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1086449&cid=26386539