I don't think he meant the argument in terms of whether it's ethical to eat chickens/eggs - he was just relying on the point that most people don't view eggs as being "chickens". You wouldn't say "I had chickens for breakfast".
These are the characteristics we use to define a single-celled bacteria as life. So it seems that at conception we can safely assume that the zygote is life.
Of course it is living - that doesn't mean that it's unethical to end that life. Also note that sperm and egg cells are living.
So at least one of these must be true: * It's wrong to kill bacteria. * Millions of living creatures are murdered when someone has sex. * Sperm and egg cells aren't alive, and unliving things magically turn into living things when they combine.
I'd be interested to know if you believe any of those three things.
This is the characteristic we currently use to define life as a separate entity, ie not the mother, and not the father.
So twins are the same entity? That's a poor definition. The argument stands for sperm and egg cells, too.
So 5 minutes before we could identify brain function, it isn't alive?
This is beside the point. The issue isn't 5 minutes before, it's when there are only 8 cells. Just because the line might be fuzzy, doesn't mean that there is uncertainty at 8 cells. If you are that worried about getting it wrong, that argument works just as well before conception.
I feel that conception is a good point because it is the single most defining instant of a human's development.
What does "most defining instant" mean?
The eggs and sperm won't grow into an adult human on their own, no matter how much nutrients you give them. An embryo will.
No it won't - you need to attach it to a womb, and even then success is far from certain. The embryos in question had not yet been implanted.
But was that on a transparent display? I see nothing about that in the link.
And from the link:
The newest iPod patent says that the "touch" and the "screen" don't have to go together.
Wow, just like the touchpad on my laptop? Combining touch and screen together is the hard bit - touch pads that aren't combined with a screen are obviously easier, and have been around for ages. If Apple really have a patent for just sticking a touchpad on the back, then they are patent trolls. I guess the difficult bit for Microsoft's patent is that it also has to be a semi-transparent display that has a screen on one side, and touchpad on the other.
Props to MS for publically demonstrating it first though.
Indeed. Ideas are the easy bit. What makes Microsoft different is that they take ideas, and bring them to the masses in a product that just works.
Apple actually understands the difference between a general purpose computer that geeks can program and customise and a domestic appliance which "just works".
Yet it seems to be geeks on places like here that spend most time hyping everything that Apple do...
And let's drop the "just works". I concede that the IPOD is a nifty product, but expecting that a product works is a basic fundamental requirement, which just about all manufacturers manage (if your product isn't working, then take it back!) When we're discussing which product is best, I expect a little more product differentiation then simply just working.
Indeed, if you want to make geeks versus normal people comparison, it seems to be geeks round here who are happy with a product just working, whilst consumers want something more. However, unfortunately as the OP says, sometimes when companies become large, they can mislead customers about expectations. I'm sure most people on Slashdot would agree with the example of Microsoft and Windows 95, how it made people think it was something new? Yet when it comes to Apple (e.g., the IPHONE and Internet access on phones being something new), it seems that many geeks have been fooled along with everyone else.
Agreed. Even Apple fans agree now - if you take a look at the last article on the Iphone, they no longer care about features, referring to such issues as "grumpy featurism" and ridiculing other phones as only being better "on paper".
At least with the Ipod though, they did become the dominant player - whether that was due to marketing, a good product, or both, who knows. But the curious thing about the Iphone is that it generates so much hype and free advertising, despite being a niche player. It's unsurprising that they sell some, with all the free advertising - along with the myths that this is the first phone to do the things it does, like Internet access. It'll go down in history as another mythical Apple "first", but the actual popularity is nothing compared to other manufacturers in this billion phone market.
This comment makes no sense. The point is that if a product A is better than product B, then you should be able to tell me why. Quibbling about the length of the feature lists is irrelevant, you should be able to tell me why.
If you're point if that ALL things with shorter feature lists are by definition better than things with longer feature lists (as if to disprove GPs point by "reductum ad absurdum"), that wasn't the GPs point at all.
A straw man argument. No, that was not my point.
He was saying that sometimes the way a feature is implemented is as important or even more important than it's actual presence.
If that was his point, then it is a fallacy to then claim that the Iphone falls into this category - anymore than my 10 year old phone.
His claim was that features didn't matter. My response shows that dismissing features could be used in all sorts of arguments. With any other company, this would be considered absurd - but because it's ApPle, it's bizarrely seen as a valid argument.
If the OP meant to include an argument of why the Iphone was superior to all other phones, despite lacking such fundamental basic features, he forgot to include them.
I used to have a Treo. It could surf the web. I never used it to surf the web because the rendering engine was awful, nothing worked right, I could hardly read the pages most of the times, and links were usually rendered so far out of place as to make them all but useless. I now have an iPhone (I've also play with G1's and my point stands there too). It can surf the web. I use it to surf the web all of the time, the interface is intuitive, the pages render as they were meant to the links are places where the designer intended, and I can zoom in to read smaller print. Both phones can "surf the web", check box checked, but one them actually get USED to "surf the web".
So the Treo is shit. I browse the web just fine on my bog standard phone.
Furthermore, this has nothing to do with what the OP claimed. If one phone had a better browser than the other, then this would still be a better feature. You can look at more detail than a single "surf the web" checkbox - there are many more specific features that web browsers might have, that might make one better than the other. Perhaps you should check out one of the IE versus Firefox versus Opera threads sometime? There's more to web browsing than a simple binary Yes or No.
However, the OP's point was not that the Iphone had a better web browser. His argument was that the Iphone was somehow better no matter what features it did or didn't have - which is clearly absurd.
According to him, I should be able to dismiss your claims of better web browsing as "grumpy featurism". Right?
Yes, yes I have been reading the thread. Which is why I roll my eyes when I see an Apple fan write for the ten millionth time a weasel-worded statement of:
First, some things are just not quantifiable.
Ah yes, the classic sign - "my BeBox is better than your Apple Mac - I can't explain why, it's just not quantifiable".
I can tell you that I use many more of my iPhones features than I did my old Treo because it's easier to use them.
"Old" being the key word. Obviously I would expect phones to get dramatically better over the years. Web browsing and email are bog standard these days - I use Opera, and it just works.
I will say this though. Most of the people making positive comments about the iPhone in this thread? They use the iPhone, either their own or someone's close to them that they can play with regularly. Most of the people making negative comments? They've never used the phone or have seen one in a store and played with it a few minutes.
But you could say the same about any phone. Have you ever used a Motorola V980 phone? If not, you don't get to dispute my comments. You're making the classic fallacy of insisting that users must use the Iphone before dismissing it. Have you used every phone out there on the market? If not, you don't get to say the Iphone is better than all of them.
With all phones, most users will say they prefer it to other phones. There's nothing special about the Iphone here. If the Iphone is so good, you should be able to tell me why - otherwise there's no reason for me to try it before any other phone out there. This also doesn't explain why we get story after story about the Iphone. I bet you haven't tried all other phones before turning them down, so why on earth should I have to try out the Iphone?
They're objecting to features that are missing on a checklist that they think they might want or need, and don't see listed on the feature list. If you tether your phone to your laptop as a daily occurrence, the iPhone is not for you.
Well the point is that if a phone costs lots of money, I expect to get something in return for that money. Surprising that. Yes, I guess if I expect something for my money, the Iphone is not for me.
If you copy blocks of text back and forth on a regular basis on your phone, the iPhone is not for you.
Crumbs, are you serious? I had to copy and paste this statement of yours in order to write this comment! If you can't see how copy and paste is a fundamental user requirement, then you're damn right, the Iphone is not for me. Having a good UI is the only good thing that people say of it, but it seems that even that isn't true. If it can't handle even basic computing technology, then why bother at all? I might as well pick up a dirt cheap phone for £20.
So tell me, who is the Iphone for? By your own admission, it's not for people who care about features.
No one claimed their technology is new, innovative, groundbreaking etc etc.
We are in agreement then.
Perhaps you require your phones to be groundbreaking and full of exciting features no-one else has - I just want mine to work, and have a thoughtful design.
If you don't care about features, and just want a phone to work, why not pick up a dirt cheap phone?
I'm honestly confused here - the Iphone is the best, because although it doesn't have any special features, it at least works? Is that the best you can say of it?
Is it that you are unaware of the billion dollar market of mobile phones that has been growing over the last decade or two and mistakenly think that the Iphone is the first of a new generation of devices that allow people to communicate without the aid of wires, or are you seriously claiming that other manufacturers ship broken products?
I'm not sure what you mean by "thoughtful design" - well great, but that's a subjective opinion, and lots of people have different opinions on what design of phone looks nicest. It also seems surprising to me that this is something considered of sole importance on a place like Slashdot (OMG Ponies?) Personally I think you can get cheap phones that look pretty cute too.
They are doing it, and they are successful - probably why they became multi-billion dollar companies in the first place.
I'm not doing it because I don't personally have the same resources as Apple or those other companies. No one is claiming that making phones is easy or that we shouldn't give Apple a pat on the back for bringing a product to market - good for them - the point is that every company does that too, and they don't get free Slashvertising on here.
There are two types of creativity (innovation) - thinking up things no one has done before and taking what a bunch of people have done before and putting it all together.
I presume when he said that Nokia have done it for years, he meant that they didn't just think it up, but they also put the phone together in order to sell it.
And I confirm that with the phones that I've seen around for years. They're not just ideas, they're phones that are out there, and just work.
They not only put it all together, they do so in an attractive package that usually works well.
Well, all my phones were put together too, but I have no idea how pretty the box they came in was...
Nope. My phone (bog standard Motorola V980 - I don't see any stories to Slashdot about it) displays the text clearly. Personally I don't have trouble learning to tell the time from an analogue clock, but for those who need digital, it's there. In fact, I've never come across a phone that had the problem you describe.
My phone also displays the time in clear lettering on the display on the outside of the phone.
Of course, even if your claim was true, that would only be something that was better on paper, and to claim it made the Iphone better would be just "grumpy featurism". As long as I can claim that my phone is better than the Iphone because it Just Works, and it's the "first of the next generation", that's okay, right?
Well, in that case, my 10 year old phone is better than the Iphone. Oh sure, it's not as good on paper, but that's just "grumpy featurism", right?
After all, now that features have been declared unnecessary in comparing products, it's fair game for everyone else. Vista versus OS X? Doesn't matter that there are far fewer viruses for OS X on paper. And claims like being easier to use are just "grumpy featurism".
Similarly, my Commodore Amiga 4000 is much better than the latest Mac. You can't judge a product by reading a feature table.
So let's have examples - something that is easier to do on the Iphone, compared with all other phones? I'll give you an example for other phones - copy and paste, a fundamental usability requirement, is, so I hear, not even implemented on the Iphone?
All I hear are the same claims as with Mac OS - it "Just Works", it's "easier but I can't explain how",
Only on paper are they comparable. Other than the physical keyboard the interface on the iPhone is vastly superior... There is more to a mobile device than just a feature set - it has to actually be usable.
Come on, I thought this was supposed to be an intelligent discussion forum. If I wanted buzzwords, I'd read the email ads that Apple spam me with. Let's hear what makes it better?
Yes, we know that you with your extensive experience think that the Iphone is the best ever, but that's no better than others who think otherwise. Can we have a debate a little more intelligent than "Iphone rules!" "Iphone sucks!"?
And then we get to the classic:
It's a nice checkbox feature that never actually gets used.
Anything that the Iphone can't do is a "nice checkbox feature", whilst the Iphone apparently beats all other phones on unspecific features, that despite being so vague, are apparently not "checkbox features".
There are millions of folks who actually use one that would probably disagree with you
If we can make judgements based on sales figures, then there are billions of people who don't agree with you.
What I saw was Apple not launching a cell-phone, they were launching a new mobile computing platform that could also be used as a cell-phone.
Welcome to the 21st Century. This has been the case for years. I hardly ever use my phone to actually make phone calls - and this isn't some expensive "smart" phone, it's just an ordinary mobile.
The iPhone isn't simply a phone, it's the first of the next-generation in mobile computing.
Rubbish - this sounds like it's taken from an advert! Smart phones have been around for years, and now that functionality has filtered down to all but the very cheapest of phones. (And what exactly does that statement mean - "first of the next"? You mean actually it's just the "next"? Every new phone that someone releases could be deemed to be the "first of the next"!)
Comparing Apple's market share to Nokia's or other established phone manufacturers misses the point, because they are simply making phones.
Okay, I'll bite - what does Apple's phone do that Nokia's don't?
You're right about the hype though. Maybe using a phone for playing music and Internet access is new to Iphone users (and I suspect this to be the case - I can imagine there being many geeks who've never thought to get a phone, but check out the Iphone because it's Apple, and are amazed at what it can do - blissfully unaware that this has been the state of play for years), but not for the rest of us. There are billions of phones in the market. And people use them for all sorts of things, without even thinking of it. Which brings me to:
If people think it's just a phone that can play games, or a combination of a phone and an iPod then fine- Apple have done their job. They've made a mobile computer that is so easy to use people take it for granted...
That's true for other phones, but I'd argue not for the Iphone - where doing these things is not viewed as normal, but seen as something special or new.
What? Beat one of the most niche market shares (Windows mobile) in the mobile phone market?
I agree. I'm not sure why you got modded down - this statement is to the point of the matter. The other day, there was an article where people were saying how great the Iphone because it had sold more than the only just released Android. I don't know if it's true that the Iphone is more popular than Windows Mobile - if it is, then that's bad for Windows mobile, but comments on this story are as if people think that these are the only two phones that exist!
Wake me up when they're competing with the likes of Motorola and Nokia - why don't we ever get stories about them?
(Trying to claim that the Iphone is a "smart" phone, and then restrict the market they are looking at, doesn't really help - most phones these days can do the things that were once the domain of smartphones; other new phones by major manufacturers such as Nokia have just as much right to claim the "smartphone" label as the Iphone does.)
a simple fact is 90% of computer users aren't programmers, and programmers need to realise that.
But 90% of computer users aren't artists and CAD users, either...
Yes, using a tablet is a good example where having a touch screen would be much better. But that's a minority of users. I'm not sure why you mention programmers - the comment you replied to didn't mention programmers at all; he was talking about computer users in general, unlike your response which focused on CAD users.
All programmers do is enter text so keyboards are mandatory.
Most users need to enter text. And even those who just browse the web, it's still easier to view something in front of you, than having to look down on the desk all the time. Yes, a secondary screen for when you want to "draw, plot, map, and work with images" would be useful, but that is far from the primary usage of computers for the vast majority of people - I guess CAD users need to realise that...
This doesn't make sense though - people don't like the change from XP to Vista, so they'll switch to a completely different new platform, requiring a whole new computer?
And if they run Windows on a Mac, which version will that be? If they can get XP to run on a Mac, they could get it to run on a PC too!
Slashdot Mirror
I never said it did matter which womb - I said "a womb".
It doesn't matter which sperm and egg you combine together, either.
I don't think he meant the argument in terms of whether it's ethical to eat chickens/eggs - he was just relying on the point that most people don't view eggs as being "chickens". You wouldn't say "I had chickens for breakfast".
These are the characteristics we use to define a single-celled bacteria as life. So it seems that at conception we can safely assume that the zygote is life.
Of course it is living - that doesn't mean that it's unethical to end that life. Also note that sperm and egg cells are living.
So at least one of these must be true:
* It's wrong to kill bacteria.
* Millions of living creatures are murdered when someone has sex.
* Sperm and egg cells aren't alive, and unliving things magically turn into living things when they combine.
I'd be interested to know if you believe any of those three things.
This is the characteristic we currently use to define life as a separate entity, ie not the mother, and not the father.
So twins are the same entity? That's a poor definition. The argument stands for sperm and egg cells, too.
So 5 minutes before we could identify brain function, it isn't alive?
This is beside the point. The issue isn't 5 minutes before, it's when there are only 8 cells. Just because the line might be fuzzy, doesn't mean that there is uncertainty at 8 cells. If you are that worried about getting it wrong, that argument works just as well before conception.
I feel that conception is a good point because it is the single most defining instant of a human's development.
What does "most defining instant" mean?
The eggs and sperm won't grow into an adult human on their own, no matter how much nutrients you give them. An embryo will.
No it won't - you need to attach it to a womb, and even then success is far from certain. The embryos in question had not yet been implanted.
But was that on a transparent display? I see nothing about that in the link.
And from the link:
The newest iPod patent says that the "touch" and the "screen" don't have to go together.
Wow, just like the touchpad on my laptop? Combining touch and screen together is the hard bit - touch pads that aren't combined with a screen are obviously easier, and have been around for ages. If Apple really have a patent for just sticking a touchpad on the back, then they are patent trolls. I guess the difficult bit for Microsoft's patent is that it also has to be a semi-transparent display that has a screen on one side, and touchpad on the other.
Props to MS for publically demonstrating it first though.
Indeed. Ideas are the easy bit. What makes Microsoft different is that they take ideas, and bring them to the masses in a product that just works.
Yes it is:
Mars Express fired its main thrusters on December 25 and successfully entered Mars orbit. The Beagle 2 lander, however, has not been heard from.
And why shouldn't the Mars Global Surveyor be counted as a success? The site looks accurate to me.
Apple actually understands the difference between a general purpose computer that geeks can program and customise and a domestic appliance which "just works".
Yet it seems to be geeks on places like here that spend most time hyping everything that Apple do...
And let's drop the "just works". I concede that the IPOD is a nifty product, but expecting that a product works is a basic fundamental requirement, which just about all manufacturers manage (if your product isn't working, then take it back!) When we're discussing which product is best, I expect a little more product differentiation then simply just working.
Indeed, if you want to make geeks versus normal people comparison, it seems to be geeks round here who are happy with a product just working, whilst consumers want something more. However, unfortunately as the OP says, sometimes when companies become large, they can mislead customers about expectations. I'm sure most people on Slashdot would agree with the example of Microsoft and Windows 95, how it made people think it was something new? Yet when it comes to Apple (e.g., the IPHONE and Internet access on phones being something new), it seems that many geeks have been fooled along with everyone else.
This is why Apple is a rocket and Google with its android a dud...
Right, Apple and Google are the only two companies in this brand new-fangled market of mobile phone technology.
Agreed. Even Apple fans agree now - if you take a look at the last article on the Iphone, they no longer care about features, referring to such issues as "grumpy featurism" and ridiculing other phones as only being better "on paper".
At least with the Ipod though, they did become the dominant player - whether that was due to marketing, a good product, or both, who knows. But the curious thing about the Iphone is that it generates so much hype and free advertising, despite being a niche player. It's unsurprising that they sell some, with all the free advertising - along with the myths that this is the first phone to do the things it does, like Internet access. It'll go down in history as another mythical Apple "first", but the actual popularity is nothing compared to other manufacturers in this billion phone market.
This comment makes no sense. The point is that if a product A is better than product B, then you should be able to tell me why. Quibbling about the length of the feature lists is irrelevant, you should be able to tell me why.
If you're point if that ALL things with shorter feature lists are by definition better than things with longer feature lists (as if to disprove GPs point by "reductum ad absurdum"), that wasn't the GPs point at all.
A straw man argument. No, that was not my point.
He was saying that sometimes the way a feature is implemented is as important or even more important than it's actual presence.
If that was his point, then it is a fallacy to then claim that the Iphone falls into this category - anymore than my 10 year old phone.
His claim was that features didn't matter. My response shows that dismissing features could be used in all sorts of arguments. With any other company, this would be considered absurd - but because it's ApPle, it's bizarrely seen as a valid argument.
If the OP meant to include an argument of why the Iphone was superior to all other phones, despite lacking such fundamental basic features, he forgot to include them.
I used to have a Treo. It could surf the web. I never used it to surf the web because the rendering engine was awful, nothing worked right, I could hardly read the pages most of the times, and links were usually rendered so far out of place as to make them all but useless. I now have an iPhone (I've also play with G1's and my point stands there too). It can surf the web. I use it to surf the web all of the time, the interface is intuitive, the pages render as they were meant to the links are places where the designer intended, and I can zoom in to read smaller print. Both phones can "surf the web", check box checked, but one them actually get USED to "surf the web".
So the Treo is shit. I browse the web just fine on my bog standard phone.
Furthermore, this has nothing to do with what the OP claimed. If one phone had a better browser than the other, then this would still be a better feature. You can look at more detail than a single "surf the web" checkbox - there are many more specific features that web browsers might have, that might make one better than the other. Perhaps you should check out one of the IE versus Firefox versus Opera threads sometime? There's more to web browsing than a simple binary Yes or No.
However, the OP's point was not that the Iphone had a better web browser. His argument was that the Iphone was somehow better no matter what features it did or didn't have - which is clearly absurd.
According to him, I should be able to dismiss your claims of better web browsing as "grumpy featurism". Right?
Well my Motorola phone has an excellect design. Had it years before the Iphone came about, too.
Really, have you been reading the thread?
Yes, yes I have been reading the thread. Which is why I roll my eyes when I see an Apple fan write for the ten millionth time a weasel-worded statement of:
First, some things are just not quantifiable.
Ah yes, the classic sign - "my BeBox is better than your Apple Mac - I can't explain why, it's just not quantifiable".
I can tell you that I use many more of my iPhones features than I did my old Treo because it's easier to use them.
"Old" being the key word. Obviously I would expect phones to get dramatically better over the years. Web browsing and email are bog standard these days - I use Opera, and it just works.
I will say this though. Most of the people making positive comments about the iPhone in this thread? They use the iPhone, either their own or someone's close to them that they can play with regularly. Most of the people making negative comments? They've never used the phone or have seen one in a store and played with it a few minutes.
But you could say the same about any phone. Have you ever used a Motorola V980 phone? If not, you don't get to dispute my comments. You're making the classic fallacy of insisting that users must use the Iphone before dismissing it. Have you used every phone out there on the market? If not, you don't get to say the Iphone is better than all of them.
With all phones, most users will say they prefer it to other phones. There's nothing special about the Iphone here. If the Iphone is so good, you should be able to tell me why - otherwise there's no reason for me to try it before any other phone out there. This also doesn't explain why we get story after story about the Iphone. I bet you haven't tried all other phones before turning them down, so why on earth should I have to try out the Iphone?
They're objecting to features that are missing on a checklist that they think they might want or need, and don't see listed on the feature list. If you tether your phone to your laptop as a daily occurrence, the iPhone is not for you.
Well the point is that if a phone costs lots of money, I expect to get something in return for that money. Surprising that. Yes, I guess if I expect something for my money, the Iphone is not for me.
If you copy blocks of text back and forth on a regular basis on your phone, the iPhone is not for you.
Crumbs, are you serious? I had to copy and paste this statement of yours in order to write this comment! If you can't see how copy and paste is a fundamental user requirement, then you're damn right, the Iphone is not for me. Having a good UI is the only good thing that people say of it, but it seems that even that isn't true. If it can't handle even basic computing technology, then why bother at all? I might as well pick up a dirt cheap phone for £20.
So tell me, who is the Iphone for? By your own admission, it's not for people who care about features.
No one claimed their technology is new, innovative, groundbreaking etc etc.
We are in agreement then.
Perhaps you require your phones to be groundbreaking and full of exciting features no-one else has - I just want mine to work, and have a thoughtful design.
If you don't care about features, and just want a phone to work, why not pick up a dirt cheap phone?
I'm honestly confused here - the Iphone is the best, because although it doesn't have any special features, it at least works? Is that the best you can say of it?
Is it that you are unaware of the billion dollar market of mobile phones that has been growing over the last decade or two and mistakenly think that the Iphone is the first of a new generation of devices that allow people to communicate without the aid of wires, or are you seriously claiming that other manufacturers ship broken products?
I'm not sure what you mean by "thoughtful design" - well great, but that's a subjective opinion, and lots of people have different opinions on what design of phone looks nicest. It also seems surprising to me that this is something considered of sole importance on a place like Slashdot (OMG Ponies?) Personally I think you can get cheap phones that look pretty cute too.
They are doing it, and they are successful - probably why they became multi-billion dollar companies in the first place.
I'm not doing it because I don't personally have the same resources as Apple or those other companies. No one is claiming that making phones is easy or that we shouldn't give Apple a pat on the back for bringing a product to market - good for them - the point is that every company does that too, and they don't get free Slashvertising on here.
There are two types of creativity (innovation) - thinking up things no one has done before and taking what a bunch of people have done before and putting it all together.
I presume when he said that Nokia have done it for years, he meant that they didn't just think it up, but they also put the phone together in order to sell it.
And I confirm that with the phones that I've seen around for years. They're not just ideas, they're phones that are out there, and just work.
They not only put it all together, they do so in an attractive package that usually works well.
Well, all my phones were put together too, but I have no idea how pretty the box they came in was...
Nope. My phone (bog standard Motorola V980 - I don't see any stories to Slashdot about it) displays the text clearly. Personally I don't have trouble learning to tell the time from an analogue clock, but for those who need digital, it's there. In fact, I've never come across a phone that had the problem you describe.
My phone also displays the time in clear lettering on the display on the outside of the phone.
Of course, even if your claim was true, that would only be something that was better on paper, and to claim it made the Iphone better would be just "grumpy featurism". As long as I can claim that my phone is better than the Iphone because it Just Works, and it's the "first of the next generation", that's okay, right?
Well, in that case, my 10 year old phone is better than the Iphone. Oh sure, it's not as good on paper, but that's just "grumpy featurism", right?
After all, now that features have been declared unnecessary in comparing products, it's fair game for everyone else. Vista versus OS X? Doesn't matter that there are far fewer viruses for OS X on paper. And claims like being easier to use are just "grumpy featurism".
Similarly, my Commodore Amiga 4000 is much better than the latest Mac. You can't judge a product by reading a feature table.
So let's have examples - something that is easier to do on the Iphone, compared with all other phones? I'll give you an example for other phones - copy and paste, a fundamental usability requirement, is, so I hear, not even implemented on the Iphone?
All I hear are the same claims as with Mac OS - it "Just Works", it's "easier but I can't explain how",
Only on paper are they comparable. Other than the physical keyboard the interface on the iPhone is vastly superior ... There is more to a mobile device than just a feature set - it has to actually be usable.
Come on, I thought this was supposed to be an intelligent discussion forum. If I wanted buzzwords, I'd read the email ads that Apple spam me with. Let's hear what makes it better?
Yes, we know that you with your extensive experience think that the Iphone is the best ever, but that's no better than others who think otherwise. Can we have a debate a little more intelligent than "Iphone rules!" "Iphone sucks!"?
And then we get to the classic:
It's a nice checkbox feature that never actually gets used.
Anything that the Iphone can't do is a "nice checkbox feature", whilst the Iphone apparently beats all other phones on unspecific features, that despite being so vague, are apparently not "checkbox features".
There are millions of folks who actually use one that would probably disagree with you
If we can make judgements based on sales figures, then there are billions of people who don't agree with you.
What I saw was Apple not launching a cell-phone, they were launching a new mobile computing platform that could also be used as a cell-phone.
Welcome to the 21st Century. This has been the case for years. I hardly ever use my phone to actually make phone calls - and this isn't some expensive "smart" phone, it's just an ordinary mobile.
The iPhone isn't simply a phone, it's the first of the next-generation in mobile computing.
Rubbish - this sounds like it's taken from an advert! Smart phones have been around for years, and now that functionality has filtered down to all but the very cheapest of phones. (And what exactly does that statement mean - "first of the next"? You mean actually it's just the "next"? Every new phone that someone releases could be deemed to be the "first of the next"!)
Comparing Apple's market share to Nokia's or other established phone manufacturers misses the point, because they are simply making phones.
Okay, I'll bite - what does Apple's phone do that Nokia's don't?
You're right about the hype though. Maybe using a phone for playing music and Internet access is new to Iphone users (and I suspect this to be the case - I can imagine there being many geeks who've never thought to get a phone, but check out the Iphone because it's Apple, and are amazed at what it can do - blissfully unaware that this has been the state of play for years), but not for the rest of us. There are billions of phones in the market. And people use them for all sorts of things, without even thinking of it. Which brings me to:
If people think it's just a phone that can play games, or a combination of a phone and an iPod then fine- Apple have done their job. They've made a mobile computer that is so easy to use people take it for granted...
That's true for other phones, but I'd argue not for the Iphone - where doing these things is not viewed as normal, but seen as something special or new.
What? Beat one of the most niche market shares (Windows mobile) in the mobile phone market?
I agree. I'm not sure why you got modded down - this statement is to the point of the matter. The other day, there was an article where people were saying how great the Iphone because it had sold more than the only just released Android. I don't know if it's true that the Iphone is more popular than Windows Mobile - if it is, then that's bad for Windows mobile, but comments on this story are as if people think that these are the only two phones that exist!
Wake me up when they're competing with the likes of Motorola and Nokia - why don't we ever get stories about them?
(Trying to claim that the Iphone is a "smart" phone, and then restrict the market they are looking at, doesn't really help - most phones these days can do the things that were once the domain of smartphones; other new phones by major manufacturers such as Nokia have just as much right to claim the "smartphone" label as the Iphone does.)
a simple fact is 90% of computer users aren't programmers, and programmers need to realise that.
But 90% of computer users aren't artists and CAD users, either...
Yes, using a tablet is a good example where having a touch screen would be much better. But that's a minority of users. I'm not sure why you mention programmers - the comment you replied to didn't mention programmers at all; he was talking about computer users in general, unlike your response which focused on CAD users.
All programmers do is enter text so keyboards are mandatory.
Most users need to enter text. And even those who just browse the web, it's still easier to view something in front of you, than having to look down on the desk all the time. Yes, a secondary screen for when you want to "draw, plot, map, and work with images" would be useful, but that is far from the primary usage of computers for the vast majority of people - I guess CAD users need to realise that...
OOI, what does a Mac Mini have that can't be added to XP or Vista for free?
So what, it's better to waste RAM by doing absolutely nothing with it?
I've seen Vista running fine on a laptop with slower processor, and only 1GB RAM. Not sure what's wrong with the setup that you tried.
Or maybe they'll get a BeBox.
This doesn't make sense though - people don't like the change from XP to Vista, so they'll switch to a completely different new platform, requiring a whole new computer?
And if they run Windows on a Mac, which version will that be? If they can get XP to run on a Mac, they could get it to run on a PC too!