The "i" is a lot more trivial and insignificant than "Think" or "Note" - not to mention that notepad is a pre-existing word, so people are less likely to think of the association.
I agree - although I guess they couldn't go with the "istale" (or given its vaporware status, the "IsLate").
But I say good luck to Fujitsu. I think it's a justified use of trademark law if they're products in the same or similar market (which is what trademark law is meant to protect).
I mean, if I started releasing "Mac" computers, how soon would it be before I got a call from Apple's lawyers?
As are you. Just because you hate Apple, that doesn't mean people don't actually like their products.
Can you point me to where I claim no one likes Apple products?
And another fallacy: just because I don't like a product, or point out factual information about it, doesn't mean I hate them.
The Ipod, Iphone and Ipad do all suck. The iPod, iPhone and iPad, however.
I try to write correct grammar. I don't write the trademark logos, just as I don't write a reversed "R" when talking about Toys R Us, or sing "ding dong ding dong" when I mention Intel.
Well, the first two are great products and are doing quite well. The iPad looks to continue the trend.
The first one is market leader. The second is a niche product. Yeah, I bet Ipad will follow that trend...
And that is that your personal opinion is already at odds with the market, and the market shows no sign of re-aligning with you any time soon.
Come on, citations of actual market figures? What's the Ipad market share?
People don't usually choose IE or Windows. It's the default. It's what they need to be compatible with the office. People chose the iPod when there were other players with greater features or lower prices, and they still do.
Nonsense, plenty of people choose Windows PCs, and if Apple can't be compatible with business, that's their issue. The Ipod is just as much as a default - it's what's advertised prominently by every store, and do you think most people know there are any other mp3 players these days?
Or put differently, when people buy iPods, iPhones and Macs, it's because they specifically want those things in particular.
And even if we said things were different for Microsoft, Apple are still no different to every other tech company on the planet, including those selling better (e.g., Nokia), and which don't get hyped.
But I'm extremely confident that number is much lower than Windows' actual market share.
You could make the same vague untestable claim for Apple, and most other companies.
That rationale was never the rationale - that was sneaked in afterwards, to extend the law further to ludicrious situations where the original argument never applied.
And yes, it's a poor test case, but that's why they start off with cases like these. Get the precedent set with a case no one dares defend, and then start applying the law to any random person they find. This also happened in the UK with the new 2009 "extreme pr0n" law - the first cases were people also already accused of other offenses (usually involving children), then it only took a few months for them to use it on an otherwise innocent guy for having a joke image.
As these were "child characters", I doubt he was interested in seeing breasts.
Do we know what this person was actually interested in? Not that it should matter - that would just leave us with thought crime - but I could conceive people having all kinds of images just as joke images. In the UK there was a recent case where someone was arrested and prosecuted for a joke image he was sent (thankfully the verdict was not guilty).
It's a tough question as to where to draw the line.
If it's consensual, it should be legal. If not, then maybe, maybe not, but the thought crime issues don't really apply.
And when we're talking about cartoons there should be no question of legality. The is no "tough question" here. Any difficult edge cases, such as those you describe, do not at all apply to this kind of law.
Here in the UK, not only have these kind of images recently been criminalised, but the age is set at 18 - so even a cartoon of a perfectly legal act is illegal to possess! (Age of consent is 16, here.)
But there's a lot of appeal to a flat unit you can use like a clipboard while resting back in your favorite lounge chair or sitting up in bed
What, having to hold it all the time in one hand? Flat just means it lies flat, which is not what you want unless you're walking around with it. I much prefer having a netbook/laptop sit on my lap or desk, with the screen automatically angled just right.
There will be a market for this.
I'm sure there is - tablets have been around long before Apple decided to play catch-up again.
So why not buy any one of the netbooks, phones or tablets that have been around for years? If you prefer LCD to the e-ink, you can get something much cheaper.
And this isn't mainstream (it's only just been announced), and there is no way to know if it will be.
In that case, it's just like a general purpose netbook (except more expensive and running a cut down phone OS), or any of the other tablets already out there.
Anyhow, the OP claimed it was an ebook reader, intending to replace the Kindle, which is clearly ludicrous.
The problem I think is that it tries to be both a menu and toolbar, but fails at either. The whole point of a toolbar is to hold a few of the most commonly used actions, via an icon. But now everything's an icon, it's a lot harder to memorise where and what everything is. At least hunting through menus, you can see the descriptions straight away.
Worse is that although the ribbon is categorised, it may be that commonly used actions are on different tabs. So suddenly, you have to repeatedly click between the tabs, for every action you want, when before these actions would both be on a single toolbar.
You talk as if Windows and Apple are the only two companies in the mobile computing market! They're not, by far.
And the worst UI I encounter on Windows are when I have to use Quicktime or Itunes, sorry. So I simply don't trust all these claims, which are never backed up with actual examples, just flimsy "Oh it's better, it just is, honest, I can't explain why".
Agreed. It's absurd how Apple dropping the floppy from the Imac is upheld as some key moment, especially when most computers aren't Macs (and this was even more so back in the Imac days).
There were companies that dropped floppies from platform before than (e.g., the Commodore Amiga CDTV, years earlier in 1991), and there were companies that dropped it later. Most companies doing it later was quite sensible, given that floppies were still needed - hell, the Imac didn't offer any alternatives (such as a CD writer). It was particularly laughable that the response to this criticism was "Well you can buy a USB floppy" - er yeah, right, as if that doesn't defeat the whole point of killing the floppy. So Apple kills the internal floppy, just so that we can start with the external one...
Does it have e-ink quality screen, with 10s of hours of use? No. As you say yourself, only 10 hours use. That's not an e-book reader. It's no more of an e-book reader than any netbook, tablet or phone. Let alone a "super" one.
What exactly is "super" about it anyway?
It's for eBooks, music, photos, the web and email and it's designed to do those tasks in a sleek, sexy, simple manner
Oh I see, just like every other portable device for donkeys years. Great, but please don't pretend it's anything new.
My thoughts exactly. The advantage of the Ipod is that it's small - making portable devices bigger? That's what people call a "brick". Yet it lacks the advantages of similar sized devices, most notably netbooks (proper keyboard, open and full computer OS).
This may sell okay to some Apple fans, but the hype over this is absurdly ridiculous and disproprtionate. I only hope it will return to normal coverage (as happened with the Air - funny how we never heard about that again, after netbooks appeared on the scene). Or I fear it may turn out like the Iphone - free advertising in the media, including daily Ipad stories (or more), even if it turns out to be one of the lesser seller tablets, compared to tablets that never get any coverage at all.
iPod - "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame."
I'm sorry, how does its popularity negate criticisms of its functionality? Or are you saying that any criticisms of PCs, Windows and Internet Explorer are also ludicrous, because of their popularity?
The only one of your statements that makes any claims of sales is the one for the Ipod Mini (and a rather straw man claim - you only need one buyer to disprove it, but that's not saying very much).
You are also committing a blatant fallacy: just because one product of theirs is popular (the Ipod) doesn't mean future ones will be. Tell me, do you think that Windows phones and tablets will become dominant, based on the past overwhelming success of Windows?
We could equally point out the Mac, the Iphone, or indeed specific models such as the Air (remember that? Thought not), and conclude that the Ipad will likely also sell okay for Apple to make money, but only to a niche market.
Notice how nexus one/gphone has already had spyware apps running that harvest user data? No vetting process, no one reviews the code
Nonsense, there's vetting for the Android Market.
Notice how all the exploits and hacks for the iphone only work on jailbroken phones? Theres a reason. Notice how nexus one/gphone has already had spyware apps running that harvest user data?
You might risk a virus if you run an Android app not vetted. You might risk a virus if you hack your Iphone and do the same. Not sure what the difference is, other than one is less nanny-state.
Personally, I LIKE Apple's review process. I LIKE not having to worry about my phone gathering my call data and sending my contacts out via some virus or trojan or something. I LIKE having a phone that "just works" even with Apple's limitations.
My 5800 Just Works, without Apple's limitations.
I LIKE the fact that when some idiot developer ships an app with 200 bugs, Apple sends the shit back to them and makes them fix it before releasing the app on the store.
Same for any other store.
As far as the endless complaining on Slashdot goes, it comes down to this. Don't like it? BUY SOMETHING ELSE. we don't care...
Endless complaining? Endless hype and advertising, more like. You evidently do care, we get nothing but Apple Apple Apple, and heaven forbid someone mention another more popular phone.
I'd much rather have Apple monitoring the app store and pay for apps at the risk of reduced functionality than to randomly download software from someone else
Er, you have that choice with any phone. The difference is, it's your choice, and not Apple's.
Google and slashdot can bitch, moan, and scream all day long, and people will still buy an iPhone because no one gives a shit.
The reality is that most people buy phones other than Iphones, but it's Slashdot that whines and pretends otherwise.
Reality check: slashdot's crowd is in no way normal, and generally consists of a bunch of wanna be techies who are completely out of touch with both real techies and normal people.
Fully agree - it's only on Slashdot that there's this delusion that Apple are the market leader in phones.
They'd prefer the interface and reliability of a closed system to the crap that is called android. Google is good at a lot of things, making a phone OS isn't one of them.
Ah yes, pro-Apple tactic number 43 - only compare to Android, the only platform with less share than Apple. Unfortunately you forget every other phone company that's selling vastly more than Apple.
If your argument is that popular must mean better, I fail to see why you're using the little-used Iphone.
Wow, 10 million phones out of a market that sells about a billion a year. Wow. I guess the remaining 99% actually do care then.
that come with the iPhone then just jailbreak the bloody thing
Yeah, here we have it. Only earlier today, we had the story about Iphone viruses, and morons were pleading "But you only have this problem if you jailbreak, and no one would be stupid enough to do that". Yet, here you are, telling us we need to jailbreak it to get basic functionality working.
Jesus Christ - please actually take the time to check some basic market stats before throwing such a ludicrous insult. Apple have a few percent of the market, RIM are better, although just about every other company - LG, Samsung, Motorola - are way ahead, with Nokia the market leader. Those are the facts.
I don't know where you get out, but it isn't a typical representation of what people actually buy.
Slashdot Mirror
The "i" is a lot more trivial and insignificant than "Think" or "Note" - not to mention that notepad is a pre-existing word, so people are less likely to think of the association.
as lord knows the name is awful... Just awful...
I agree - although I guess they couldn't go with the "istale" (or given its vaporware status, the "IsLate").
But I say good luck to Fujitsu. I think it's a justified use of trademark law if they're products in the same or similar market (which is what trademark law is meant to protect).
I mean, if I started releasing "Mac" computers, how soon would it be before I got a call from Apple's lawyers?
As are you. Just because you hate Apple, that doesn't mean people don't actually like their products.
Can you point me to where I claim no one likes Apple products?
And another fallacy: just because I don't like a product, or point out factual information about it, doesn't mean I hate them.
The Ipod, Iphone and Ipad do all suck. The iPod, iPhone and iPad, however.
I try to write correct grammar. I don't write the trademark logos, just as I don't write a reversed "R" when talking about Toys R Us, or sing "ding dong ding dong" when I mention Intel.
Well, the first two are great products and are doing quite well. The iPad looks to continue the trend.
The first one is market leader. The second is a niche product. Yeah, I bet Ipad will follow that trend...
And that is that your personal opinion is already at odds with the market, and the market shows no sign of re-aligning with you any time soon.
Come on, citations of actual market figures? What's the Ipad market share?
People don't usually choose IE or Windows. It's the default. It's what they need to be compatible with the office. People chose the iPod when there were other players with greater features or lower prices, and they still do.
Nonsense, plenty of people choose Windows PCs, and if Apple can't be compatible with business, that's their issue. The Ipod is just as much as a default - it's what's advertised prominently by every store, and do you think most people know there are any other mp3 players these days?
Or put differently, when people buy iPods, iPhones and Macs, it's because they specifically want those things in particular.
And even if we said things were different for Microsoft, Apple are still no different to every other tech company on the planet, including those selling better (e.g., Nokia), and which don't get hyped.
But I'm extremely confident that number is much lower than Windows' actual market share.
You could make the same vague untestable claim for Apple, and most other companies.
That rationale was never the rationale - that was sneaked in afterwards, to extend the law further to ludicrious situations where the original argument never applied.
And yes, it's a poor test case, but that's why they start off with cases like these. Get the precedent set with a case no one dares defend, and then start applying the law to any random person they find. This also happened in the UK with the new 2009 "extreme pr0n" law - the first cases were people also already accused of other offenses (usually involving children), then it only took a few months for them to use it on an otherwise innocent guy for having a joke image.
As these were "child characters", I doubt he was interested in seeing breasts.
Do we know what this person was actually interested in? Not that it should matter - that would just leave us with thought crime - but I could conceive people having all kinds of images just as joke images. In the UK there was a recent case where someone was arrested and prosecuted for a joke image he was sent (thankfully the verdict was not guilty).
It's a tough question as to where to draw the line.
If it's consensual, it should be legal. If not, then maybe, maybe not, but the thought crime issues don't really apply.
And when we're talking about cartoons there should be no question of legality. The is no "tough question" here. Any difficult edge cases, such as those you describe, do not at all apply to this kind of law.
Here in the UK, not only have these kind of images recently been criminalised, but the age is set at 18 - so even a cartoon of a perfectly legal act is illegal to possess! (Age of consent is 16, here.)
But there's a lot of appeal to a flat unit you can use like a clipboard while resting back in your favorite lounge chair or sitting up in bed
What, having to hold it all the time in one hand? Flat just means it lies flat, which is not what you want unless you're walking around with it. I much prefer having a netbook/laptop sit on my lap or desk, with the screen automatically angled just right.
There will be a market for this.
I'm sure there is - tablets have been around long before Apple decided to play catch-up again.
Ah, but it is at least more expensive than netbooks - more money for Apple! ;)
So why not buy any one of the netbooks, phones or tablets that have been around for years? If you prefer LCD to the e-ink, you can get something much cheaper.
And this isn't mainstream (it's only just been announced), and there is no way to know if it will be.
Neither the iPhone nor iPod created a market, they just took over what was there.
The Iphone didn't take over.
In that case, it's just like a general purpose netbook (except more expensive and running a cut down phone OS), or any of the other tablets already out there.
Anyhow, the OP claimed it was an ebook reader, intending to replace the Kindle, which is clearly ludicrous.
The problem I think is that it tries to be both a menu and toolbar, but fails at either. The whole point of a toolbar is to hold a few of the most commonly used actions, via an icon. But now everything's an icon, it's a lot harder to memorise where and what everything is. At least hunting through menus, you can see the descriptions straight away.
Worse is that although the ribbon is categorised, it may be that commonly used actions are on different tabs. So suddenly, you have to repeatedly click between the tabs, for every action you want, when before these actions would both be on a single toolbar.
But for that market, any bog standard phone, tablet, netbook etc is an e-reader. And you can get that for far cheaper.
But the Kindle is the target competitor
Are you serious? So how is it better at the Kindle for e-reading? Because it certainly doesn't beat it on price!
You talk as if Windows and Apple are the only two companies in the mobile computing market! They're not, by far.
And the worst UI I encounter on Windows are when I have to use Quicktime or Itunes, sorry. So I simply don't trust all these claims, which are never backed up with actual examples, just flimsy "Oh it's better, it just is, honest, I can't explain why".
Agreed. It's absurd how Apple dropping the floppy from the Imac is upheld as some key moment, especially when most computers aren't Macs (and this was even more so back in the Imac days).
There were companies that dropped floppies from platform before than (e.g., the Commodore Amiga CDTV, years earlier in 1991), and there were companies that dropped it later. Most companies doing it later was quite sensible, given that floppies were still needed - hell, the Imac didn't offer any alternatives (such as a CD writer). It was particularly laughable that the response to this criticism was "Well you can buy a USB floppy" - er yeah, right, as if that doesn't defeat the whole point of killing the floppy. So Apple kills the internal floppy, just so that we can start with the external one...
If they want tethering, let's hope they didn't get an Iphone too ;)
Does it have e-ink quality screen, with 10s of hours of use? No. As you say yourself, only 10 hours use. That's not an e-book reader. It's no more of an e-book reader than any netbook, tablet or phone. Let alone a "super" one.
What exactly is "super" about it anyway?
It's for eBooks, music, photos, the web and email and it's designed to do those tasks in a sleek, sexy, simple manner
Oh I see, just like every other portable device for donkeys years. Great, but please don't pretend it's anything new.
My thoughts exactly. The advantage of the Ipod is that it's small - making portable devices bigger? That's what people call a "brick". Yet it lacks the advantages of similar sized devices, most notably netbooks (proper keyboard, open and full computer OS).
This may sell okay to some Apple fans, but the hype over this is absurdly ridiculous and disproprtionate. I only hope it will return to normal coverage (as happened with the Air - funny how we never heard about that again, after netbooks appeared on the scene). Or I fear it may turn out like the Iphone - free advertising in the media, including daily Ipad stories (or more), even if it turns out to be one of the lesser seller tablets, compared to tablets that never get any coverage at all.
iPod - "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame."
I'm sorry, how does its popularity negate criticisms of its functionality? Or are you saying that any criticisms of PCs, Windows and Internet Explorer are also ludicrous, because of their popularity?
The only one of your statements that makes any claims of sales is the one for the Ipod Mini (and a rather straw man claim - you only need one buyer to disprove it, but that's not saying very much).
You are also committing a blatant fallacy: just because one product of theirs is popular (the Ipod) doesn't mean future ones will be. Tell me, do you think that Windows phones and tablets will become dominant, based on the past overwhelming success of Windows?
We could equally point out the Mac, the Iphone, or indeed specific models such as the Air (remember that? Thought not), and conclude that the Ipad will likely also sell okay for Apple to make money, but only to a niche market.
Notice how nexus one/gphone has already had spyware apps running that harvest user data? No vetting process, no one reviews the code
Nonsense, there's vetting for the Android Market.
Notice how all the exploits and hacks for the iphone only work on jailbroken phones? Theres a reason. Notice how nexus one/gphone has already had spyware apps running that harvest user data?
You might risk a virus if you run an Android app not vetted. You might risk a virus if you hack your Iphone and do the same. Not sure what the difference is, other than one is less nanny-state.
Personally, I LIKE Apple's review process. I LIKE not having to worry about my phone gathering my call data and sending my contacts out via some virus or trojan or something. I LIKE having a phone that "just works" even with Apple's limitations.
My 5800 Just Works, without Apple's limitations.
I LIKE the fact that when some idiot developer ships an app with 200 bugs, Apple sends the shit back to them and makes them fix it before releasing the app on the store.
Same for any other store.
As far as the endless complaining on Slashdot goes, it comes down to this. Don't like it? BUY SOMETHING ELSE. we don't care...
Endless complaining? Endless hype and advertising, more like. You evidently do care, we get nothing but Apple Apple Apple, and heaven forbid someone mention another more popular phone.
I'd much rather have Apple monitoring the app store and pay for apps at the risk of reduced functionality than to randomly download software from someone else
Er, you have that choice with any phone. The difference is, it's your choice, and not Apple's.
Google and slashdot can bitch, moan, and scream all day long, and people will still buy an iPhone because no one gives a shit.
The reality is that most people buy phones other than Iphones, but it's Slashdot that whines and pretends otherwise.
Reality check: slashdot's crowd is in no way normal, and generally consists of a bunch of wanna be techies who are completely out of touch with both real techies and normal people.
Fully agree - it's only on Slashdot that there's this delusion that Apple are the market leader in phones.
They'd prefer the interface and reliability of a closed system to the crap that is called android. Google is good at a lot of things, making a phone OS isn't one of them.
Ah yes, pro-Apple tactic number 43 - only compare to Android, the only platform with less share than Apple. Unfortunately you forget every other phone company that's selling vastly more than Apple.
If your argument is that popular must mean better, I fail to see why you're using the little-used Iphone.
Wow, 10 million phones out of a market that sells about a billion a year. Wow. I guess the remaining 99% actually do care then.
that come with the iPhone then just jailbreak the bloody thing
Yeah, here we have it. Only earlier today, we had the story about Iphone viruses, and morons were pleading "But you only have this problem if you jailbreak, and no one would be stupid enough to do that". Yet, here you are, telling us we need to jailbreak it to get basic functionality working.
Which is it?
_YOU_ may be annoyed with Apple because they operate in a closed garden but the _VAST_ majority of users really don't care all that much.
Indeed. They don't care, and they don't buy Apple.
Slashdot reader =/= average consumer.
Indeed. Only the Slashdot reader is obsessed with Apple.
Jesus Christ - please actually take the time to check some basic market stats before throwing such a ludicrous insult. Apple have a few percent of the market, RIM are better, although just about every other company - LG, Samsung, Motorola - are way ahead, with Nokia the market leader. Those are the facts.
I don't know where you get out, but it isn't a typical representation of what people actually buy.
My thoughts exactly - please tell me it was sarcasm.
I think we're going to have to start applying Poe's Law to Apple fanaticism.