I agree it's a shame physical keyboards aren't more common. I love my 5800, but I would have liked something with an actual keyboard as well as touch (there weren't any that I could see on PAYG in the price range I was looking).
The interesting thing is, I've seen a few dirt cheap feature phones with slide out QWERTY keyboards - e.g., the LG 360 for a measly £40 - so it doesn't seem to be something that should massively increase the costs.
The person you replied to said the article didn't include Iphone 4, but you're saying that "Iphone" only refers to Iphone 4. Who's right?
I'd say "Iphone" refers to the product range, and I would have thought that any market stats include all versions of the Iphone, not just the latest one. Also, what do Iphone owners say when a new model comes out - they no longer have an "Iphone"?
If we're going to include PMPs and tablets, maybe we should also add all the Windows-equipped netbooks to Microsoft's share?
Now yes, it would be unfair if the Android count included Android tablets etc, but the article talks about smartphones, so I would hope not. When comparing phone sales, it would be lying to lump together a large number of mp3 players with Apple's share just because they use the same OS on two separate kinds of devices.
Now yes, there are times when comparing platforms independent of device type is what you want - e.g., you're a developer seeing what platforms have most market share, and you don't care if they run it on a phone or whatever (but as I say, such stats also ought to include netbook OSs such as Windows and Linux). But if we're looking at phones, then it means we're looking at phones, not mp3 players or tablets.
To be fair you'd have to compare Droid X to iPhone 4.
Well I think it's better to compare sales of manufacturers, otherwise that penalises manufacturers like Nokia who differentiate their range into different model numbers, and rewards Apple who give you less choice. Motorola were a lot more popular in the past (for example, if you want to talk in terms of single models, their RAZR 3 sold over twice as many units as Apple have ever shipped in total - and that's just one of Motorola's many phones!) however I believe recently they've dropped to about 3% market share, as unpopular as Apple. Manufacturers such as Nokia, Samsung, LG and RIM are still much bigger, however.
At my office, we have about 30%/30% iPhone/Blackberry, and about 20% Android with the remaining running random "dumb" phones.
Out of interest - is there really no one in the office with "feature phones"? (This I believe is the most popular market segment - the days when you needed a smartphone to run apps or access the Internet are long gone.)
As others pointed out, RIM are still number one in the US.
But it's also worth noting that states like "851% growth" are rather misleading for things like phone sales (especially when comparing different platforms), where (unlike things like GDP where we do use percentage growths) it's unlikely for a platform to maintain exponential growth.
Consider - in the first year of any product's release, the percentage growth is infinite...
Android is still growing fastest in terms of absolute numbers, so that's still cool; Symbian are second, with RIM third (and Apple, fourth - why do we get nothing but Apple hype again, when they're nowhere near the market leader, nor anywhere near increasing their sales the most?)
Symbian basically dead? It's still the number one platform, and the number of units sold is increasing faster than RIM or Apple by over a factor of two (see my previous comment for refs and details):)
If you mean killed by Nokia - I see you referencing Meego - note that this has yet to happen, and even if it does, Symbian will still be sold at the low to mid range, where it has little competition, and the sales I believe are far greater than at the highest end of the market. So Symbian will be around for a while, yet (plus even at the high end, I believe Nokia have downplayed the suggestions that Meego will be replacing Symbian on all high end devices). Note that their development environment, Qt, cross-compiles to Symbian and Maemo, and presumably Meego in future, so there's no reason this will cause a split in terms of development.
Of course, I totally agree with you that competition is a good thing, and it would be terrible if we ended up with Apple as the dominant player killing off everything else (equally it would be bad if Symbian remained top, with all the competition dying off). But there's no evidence of Nokia (whether they use Symbian or Meego or both) dying off, nor of Apple becoming dominant. I suspect that long term, worldwide the two leaders will be Nokia and Android; with Android leading in the US.
I understand that Nokia makes some excellent hardware, but with the explosion in popularity of Android and iOS, it seems we have two winning platforms here, and it's almost too late for anyone else to catch up. RIM had something good going, but they're losing out big time.
The market data disagrees with you. Even on current sales, Nokia are still number one, with RIM number two. In the US, Nokia have no presence (and they never have, so this wasn't them losing out to the Iphones or Android), but RIM are still number one.
"Ah, but Symbian and Blackberry are becoming less popular, with Android and Iphone catching up, right?" you'll cry.
No. Looking at percentages of market share is very misleading, as the smartphone market is increasing (or rather, the number of phones arbitrary defined as "smartphones" is increasing). From the article, you'd think that Symbian is falling. But actually, the number of sales is still increasing: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10839034
"Ah, so they're still increasing, but Android and Iphones are increasing faster, right?" you'll say.
For Android yes, but for Apple, no. Again this is a statistical quirk, due to looking at percentage change rather than actual sales, thus penalising the larger players. The BBC love to spin things in favour of Apple, but here's the actual increases from Q2 2009 to Q2 2010.
Android 9,605,050 Symbian 7,950,430 RIM 3,272,880 Apple 3,200,350 Others 607,210 Microsoft -348,320 Total 24,287,600
So, Android are still top, but Apple are actually fourth! So worldwide, I'd say it's all about Symbian and Android, with RIM perhaps holding out, and Apple stagnating in fourth place. In the US, it'll be between RIM and Android, with it being likely that Android will win out on top, but again with Apple lagging, this time at third place.
I've been on a blackberry for three years and recently switched to the Android platform. Nearly everyone I know is ditching their blackberries for iPhones or Android phones when their contracts are up
I'd prefer actual evidence over anecdotes. Aside from anecdotes being poor evidence, one factor is that there's something about Iphone users that makes them have to tell everyone "I've just got an Iphone!" And then everytime they use it, it's "I'm doing X on my Iphone". Android users do this to a lesser degree. Other people just use their phone. I once even had some strangers in the pub butt into our conversation about Android, to brag "Oh, we've got Iphones".
People love apps, and it looks like most developers are focused on these two platforms.
Actually it's often just a focus on Apple. Yes, it is indeed frustrating that companies, including public funded organisations (in the UK, the BBC and the Government) seem intent on focusing on what is the fourth most popular smartphone, and only covering about 3% of the phone owning market (there's an uproar when people only develop for Windows, but at least that has 90+% market share!), and when they do consider something else, it's most likely to be Android whilst the two most popular platforms are forgotten.
However, despite all the astroturfing for Apple by companies writing their apps, and in the media, this has yet to help them in terms of sales. Also, it's not clear that Apple do have a larger number of apps overall (most claims only look at central app store sales), plus, even if there are more than quantity, who cares about thousands of different fart apps? There's still plenty of apps for Symbian at least, and the only thing that I thought was cool that I can't get is the Google Sky Map, which isn't available on Apple either (plus it's not something that's really useful, unless you're actually an astronomer, which most people aren't).
Well, if you want to look at single manufacturers, Apple are also way behind most other companies like Nokia, LG, Samsung, RIM - about 3% of the phone market. And even in the ill-defined category of "smartphones", they're behind Nokia and RIM.
Any reasons people would pick an Iphone over the current crop of Android devices or Blackberries?
Any reasons people would pick an Android device over the current crop of Iphones or Blackberries?
(You forgot Symbian btw - the number one platform, and as of Q2 2010 still increasing their lead over Blackberry and Apple, with their increase in sales second only to Android.)
And on a related note, I'm pleased that we manage to get coverage of the Blackberry without an obligatory astroturfing comparison to "the Iphone" as if it were number one, neither in the article nor the summary. Unfortunately the BBC are on their usual Apple spinning form, with the headline "RIM launches Blackberry Torch to challenge iPhone". (Does any other kind of product get a reference to a less successful competitor when it's covered in the news? And why pick Apple rather than Android (who are growing faster) or Nokia (who are number one)?)
Well, according to the mod, all taxes go on things that personally benefit every individual tax payer, and Microsoft are the Government. My bad. Thanks for correcting my obvious errors.
I'm not disputing that. It's unclear what the law even is here.
Defacing someone else's property.
The crux of the matter is what exactly constitutes "defacing" on a display model.
Although they have permission to 'try' the product, they most certainly are not given permission to install software.
So this would criminalise any random user who visits a web page, and unwittingly clicks "Okay" when the browser asks to install whatever random plug in?
If you house sit for someone, with explicit permission to 'use their property', and you then trash their house
You can make hyperbole to trashing people's houses all you like, but that doesn't really make the situation any clear. I can make false analogies too: if you have permission to enter their house, it doesn't make it trespass because you entered the bathroom when you actually didn't want that; it also doesn't make it theft if there's a sign by some biscuits saying "Please eat these biscuits if you like", when it turned out that wasn't intended to be meant for me. The display model happily went on and ran this software, and it's unclear how doing what a computer is supposed to (you know, run software) is equivalent to trashing up the place.
Why is it that a bewildering number of smart people has been indoctrinated into believing that the "free market" is the only solution to everything?
Indeed - and it's also funny that these people seem to have no problem with the vast amounts of money the US Government spends on a socialised military.
Modifying something without the owners consent is vandalism.
By that logic, anyone who uses a display model such as visiting web pages is committing vandalism. Whilst it's unclear where the line might be drawn in when doing something to a display model becomes "vandalism", it's not as simple you describe, nor is using a display model comparable to using someone else's machine without their consent.
as the police will eventually make their presence known when Apple catches on.
Nice to know police resources may be used to patch up Apple's security holes. And why do they allow unrestricted Internet access on display models in the first place, if they really have a problem with people doing things? (In practice, they probably don't care, and just reset the device every day, as others here have suggested.)
Not sure why this was modded troll. He did indeed click a link, and presumably it is not illegal to access web pages on a display model provided for that purpose.
It's an interesting point - if he can do it simply by visiting a web page, and it's an exploit in the Iphone, is it still illegal? He's only visiting a web page - unless it becomes illegal because you did so knowing it would install software?
Remember, this isn't like taking someone's phone/computer without their knowledge - surely the display devices are put out there for people to play with them, including visiting web pages (otherwise, why did the employees not care; and why was Internet access available?)
Generally, IME it's rare these days for display models of PCs or phones to allow general access at all, most PCs just run locked demos or screensavers, and I'm not sure I've seen working display models of phones at all (though you can probably ask to see it in action). They probably learned from when people played tricks installing programs years ago on display computers, and the problem's only worse with Internet access - nevermind jailbreaking, what's to stop a prankster shoving goatse on all the screens?
What is even more fun is that Apple users praise this as something that allows them to jailbreak their phone.
Indeed. On a related note, I'm reminded of two standard arguments:
* "There's no viruses/malware on the Iphone. That only applies to people who have jailbroken their phones. They deserve what they get."
* "What do you mean I can't do [insert basic task] on an Iphone? Of course it can, you just have to jailbreak it." (Apple, it Just Works - you Just have to jailbreak it to get it to Work.)
Just to add to this with another example: for Symbian/Maemo development, it uses C++ with Qt, and the tools/IDE are also free. I've had no resource problems running the phone simulator - and it's simulated rather than emulated, in that I believe the code is compiled natively for your development platform, so it runs quickly.
Good thing about Qt is it also supports Windows, Linux and OS X, so just about everything.
Kindle will win, once it also does full colour with fast refresh.
Amiga will win, once it gets 16 core CPUs.
See, it's easy to say a product will win, when you can make it up.
(For years, the Iphones had rather low resolution, even my old cheap 5800 beats it; interesting that only now resolution is suddenly an important feature when comparing phones...)
Amazon missed the cool or nerd boat (iXXX, Android).
But I'd say most companies are primarily concerned with the "mainstream boat", than whether a small per cent of the market are nerds, or think they're cool to have an Apple logo, so I don't think that's the end of the world for them. E.g., Maemo is on the nerd boat, but Nokia for now I imagine get a lot more market share (and money) from Symbian.
Before the Ipad, everyone understood this - any story about a "colour e-reader" was full of criticisms questioning whether this was really colour e-ink, or just an LCD, and then people would rightly point out the differences.
But since the Ipad? Nothing but endless advertising about how it's a "revolutionary e-reader, much better than any other", as if the whole netbook revolution never happened (not to mention there are other tablets). I'm not sure if it's just a different set of people who are genuinely ignorant, or whether they intentionally ignore the differences with e-ink, in an attempt to find something the Ipad can be best at.
But, for now, they're different worlds. And I think it'll stay that way for a few more years at least.
Indeed, I agree. But mark my words, in years to come when there is convergence, and other companies have made that technology happen, we'll have people falsely claiming "Apple did it first" or "Apple popularised tablets for e-reading".
typing away on his LCD-equipped PC that, oddly enough, always worked just fine for reading before.
Sure, but the difference is that no one ever suggested LCD devices like netbooks for e-reading. It was well understood that "e-readers" had specific advantages (not just the display, but also battery life).
Then along came the Ipad, and we have no end of astroturfing of how it's a much better "e-reader" because it's also colour and does Internet (possibly because people can't think of any other niche for it?)... except these people never seem to include the many already existing (and far cheaper) devices like netbooks (or indeed other tablets). So drawing attention to the Ipad seems reasonable.
Plus, he said "like an iPad" - if we get the Apple iProduct Placement everytime a generic term is mentioned (it's not "on your phone" anymore round here, it's "on your iPhone and other devices"), you can hardly complain the one time it's a negative comment, especially when, as I explain, singling out the Ipad actually is reasonable for once.
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If they're buying it for you, I'm not sure what the complaint is. I "hate" that my workplace doesn't buy me Blackberries, N97s or Desires...
I agree it's a shame physical keyboards aren't more common. I love my 5800, but I would have liked something with an actual keyboard as well as touch (there weren't any that I could see on PAYG in the price range I was looking).
The interesting thing is, I've seen a few dirt cheap feature phones with slide out QWERTY keyboards - e.g., the LG 360 for a measly £40 - so it doesn't seem to be something that should massively increase the costs.
The person you replied to said the article didn't include Iphone 4, but you're saying that "Iphone" only refers to Iphone 4. Who's right?
I'd say "Iphone" refers to the product range, and I would have thought that any market stats include all versions of the Iphone, not just the latest one. Also, what do Iphone owners say when a new model comes out - they no longer have an "Iphone"?
If we're going to include PMPs and tablets, maybe we should also add all the Windows-equipped netbooks to Microsoft's share?
Now yes, it would be unfair if the Android count included Android tablets etc, but the article talks about smartphones, so I would hope not. When comparing phone sales, it would be lying to lump together a large number of mp3 players with Apple's share just because they use the same OS on two separate kinds of devices.
Now yes, there are times when comparing platforms independent of device type is what you want - e.g., you're a developer seeing what platforms have most market share, and you don't care if they run it on a phone or whatever (but as I say, such stats also ought to include netbook OSs such as Windows and Linux). But if we're looking at phones, then it means we're looking at phones, not mp3 players or tablets.
To be fair you'd have to compare Droid X to iPhone 4.
Well I think it's better to compare sales of manufacturers, otherwise that penalises manufacturers like Nokia who differentiate their range into different model numbers, and rewards Apple who give you less choice. Motorola were a lot more popular in the past (for example, if you want to talk in terms of single models, their RAZR 3 sold over twice as many units as Apple have ever shipped in total - and that's just one of Motorola's many phones!) however I believe recently they've dropped to about 3% market share, as unpopular as Apple. Manufacturers such as Nokia, Samsung, LG and RIM are still much bigger, however.
At my office, we have about 30%/30% iPhone/Blackberry, and about 20% Android with the remaining running random "dumb" phones.
Out of interest - is there really no one in the office with "feature phones"? (This I believe is the most popular market segment - the days when you needed a smartphone to run apps or access the Internet are long gone.)
As others pointed out, RIM are still number one in the US.
But it's also worth noting that states like "851% growth" are rather misleading for things like phone sales (especially when comparing different platforms), where (unlike things like GDP where we do use percentage growths) it's unlikely for a platform to maintain exponential growth.
Consider - in the first year of any product's release, the percentage growth is infinite...
Android is still growing fastest in terms of absolute numbers, so that's still cool; Symbian are second, with RIM third (and Apple, fourth - why do we get nothing but Apple hype again, when they're nowhere near the market leader, nor anywhere near increasing their sales the most?)
Symbian and Palm are basically dead
Symbian basically dead? It's still the number one platform, and the number of units sold is increasing faster than RIM or Apple by over a factor of two (see my previous comment for refs and details) :)
If you mean killed by Nokia - I see you referencing Meego - note that this has yet to happen, and even if it does, Symbian will still be sold at the low to mid range, where it has little competition, and the sales I believe are far greater than at the highest end of the market. So Symbian will be around for a while, yet (plus even at the high end, I believe Nokia have downplayed the suggestions that Meego will be replacing Symbian on all high end devices). Note that their development environment, Qt, cross-compiles to Symbian and Maemo, and presumably Meego in future, so there's no reason this will cause a split in terms of development.
Of course, I totally agree with you that competition is a good thing, and it would be terrible if we ended up with Apple as the dominant player killing off everything else (equally it would be bad if Symbian remained top, with all the competition dying off). But there's no evidence of Nokia (whether they use Symbian or Meego or both) dying off, nor of Apple becoming dominant. I suspect that long term, worldwide the two leaders will be Nokia and Android; with Android leading in the US.
I understand that Nokia makes some excellent hardware, but with the explosion in popularity of Android and iOS, it seems we have two winning platforms here, and it's almost too late for anyone else to catch up. RIM had something good going, but they're losing out big time.
The market data disagrees with you. Even on current sales, Nokia are still number one, with RIM number two. In the US, Nokia have no presence (and they never have, so this wasn't them losing out to the Iphones or Android), but RIM are still number one.
"Ah, but Symbian and Blackberry are becoming less popular, with Android and Iphone catching up, right?" you'll cry.
No. Looking at percentages of market share is very misleading, as the smartphone market is increasing (or rather, the number of phones arbitrary defined as "smartphones" is increasing). From the article, you'd think that Symbian is falling. But actually, the number of sales is still increasing: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10839034
"Ah, so they're still increasing, but Android and Iphones are increasing faster, right?" you'll say.
For Android yes, but for Apple, no. Again this is a statistical quirk, due to looking at percentage change rather than actual sales, thus penalising the larger players. The BBC love to spin things in favour of Apple, but here's the actual increases from Q2 2009 to Q2 2010.
Android 9,605,050
Symbian 7,950,430
RIM 3,272,880
Apple 3,200,350
Others 607,210
Microsoft -348,320
Total 24,287,600
So, Android are still top, but Apple are actually fourth! So worldwide, I'd say it's all about Symbian and Android, with RIM perhaps holding out, and Apple stagnating in fourth place. In the US, it'll be between RIM and Android, with it being likely that Android will win out on top, but again with Apple lagging, this time at third place.
I've been on a blackberry for three years and recently switched to the Android platform. Nearly everyone I know is ditching their blackberries for iPhones or Android phones when their contracts are up
I'd prefer actual evidence over anecdotes. Aside from anecdotes being poor evidence, one factor is that there's something about Iphone users that makes them have to tell everyone "I've just got an Iphone!" And then everytime they use it, it's "I'm doing X on my Iphone". Android users do this to a lesser degree. Other people just use their phone. I once even had some strangers in the pub butt into our conversation about Android, to brag "Oh, we've got Iphones".
People love apps, and it looks like most developers are focused on these two platforms.
Actually it's often just a focus on Apple. Yes, it is indeed frustrating that companies, including public funded organisations (in the UK, the BBC and the Government) seem intent on focusing on what is the fourth most popular smartphone, and only covering about 3% of the phone owning market (there's an uproar when people only develop for Windows, but at least that has 90+% market share!), and when they do consider something else, it's most likely to be Android whilst the two most popular platforms are forgotten.
However, despite all the astroturfing for Apple by companies writing their apps, and in the media, this has yet to help them in terms of sales. Also, it's not clear that Apple do have a larger number of apps overall (most claims only look at central app store sales), plus, even if there are more than quantity, who cares about thousands of different fart apps? There's still plenty of apps for Symbian at least, and the only thing that I thought was cool that I can't get is the Google Sky Map, which isn't available on Apple either (plus it's not something that's really useful, unless you're actually an astronomer, which most people aren't).
Well, if you want to look at single manufacturers, Apple are also way behind most other companies like Nokia, LG, Samsung, RIM - about 3% of the phone market. And even in the ill-defined category of "smartphones", they're behind Nokia and RIM.
Any reasons people would pick an Iphone over the current crop of Android devices or Blackberries?
Any reasons people would pick an Android device over the current crop of Iphones or Blackberries?
(You forgot Symbian btw - the number one platform, and as of Q2 2010 still increasing their lead over Blackberry and Apple, with their increase in sales second only to Android.)
And on a related note, I'm pleased that we manage to get coverage of the Blackberry without an obligatory astroturfing comparison to "the Iphone" as if it were number one, neither in the article nor the summary. Unfortunately the BBC are on their usual Apple spinning form, with the headline "RIM launches Blackberry Torch to challenge iPhone". (Does any other kind of product get a reference to a less successful competitor when it's covered in the news? And why pick Apple rather than Android (who are growing faster) or Nokia (who are number one)?)
Well, according to the mod, all taxes go on things that personally benefit every individual tax payer, and Microsoft are the Government. My bad. Thanks for correcting my obvious errors.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse
I'm not disputing that. It's unclear what the law even is here.
Defacing someone else's property.
The crux of the matter is what exactly constitutes "defacing" on a display model.
Although they have permission to 'try' the product, they most certainly are not given permission to install software.
So this would criminalise any random user who visits a web page, and unwittingly clicks "Okay" when the browser asks to install whatever random plug in?
If you house sit for someone, with explicit permission to 'use their property', and you then trash their house
You can make hyperbole to trashing people's houses all you like, but that doesn't really make the situation any clear. I can make false analogies too: if you have permission to enter their house, it doesn't make it trespass because you entered the bathroom when you actually didn't want that; it also doesn't make it theft if there's a sign by some biscuits saying "Please eat these biscuits if you like", when it turned out that wasn't intended to be meant for me. The display model happily went on and ran this software, and it's unclear how doing what a computer is supposed to (you know, run software) is equivalent to trashing up the place.
Why is it that a bewildering number of smart people has been indoctrinated into believing that the "free market" is the only solution to everything?
Indeed - and it's also funny that these people seem to have no problem with the vast amounts of money the US Government spends on a socialised military.
So you are against taxation, not just national healthcare? That's what tax is - it's money to the Government, even if you don't personally benefit.
It's akin to if I decided to buy a Mac or Amiga computer, and yet still had to pay $1000/year to the Microsoft Monopoly.
Well no, Microsoft aren't the Government.
Modifying something without the owners consent is vandalism.
By that logic, anyone who uses a display model such as visiting web pages is committing vandalism. Whilst it's unclear where the line might be drawn in when doing something to a display model becomes "vandalism", it's not as simple you describe, nor is using a display model comparable to using someone else's machine without their consent.
as the police will eventually make their presence known when Apple catches on.
Nice to know police resources may be used to patch up Apple's security holes. And why do they allow unrestricted Internet access on display models in the first place, if they really have a problem with people doing things? (In practice, they probably don't care, and just reset the device every day, as others here have suggested.)
technically, its still not legal, because somewere in there, you are going to be breaking Apples Licence agreement
Which licence contract did the user agree to, in order to use the display model?
Not sure why this was modded troll. He did indeed click a link, and presumably it is not illegal to access web pages on a display model provided for that purpose.
It's an interesting point - if he can do it simply by visiting a web page, and it's an exploit in the Iphone, is it still illegal? He's only visiting a web page - unless it becomes illegal because you did so knowing it would install software?
Remember, this isn't like taking someone's phone/computer without their knowledge - surely the display devices are put out there for people to play with them, including visiting web pages (otherwise, why did the employees not care; and why was Internet access available?)
Generally, IME it's rare these days for display models of PCs or phones to allow general access at all, most PCs just run locked demos or screensavers, and I'm not sure I've seen working display models of phones at all (though you can probably ask to see it in action). They probably learned from when people played tricks installing programs years ago on display computers, and the problem's only worse with Internet access - nevermind jailbreaking, what's to stop a prankster shoving goatse on all the screens?
What is even more fun is that Apple users praise this as something that allows them to jailbreak their phone.
Indeed. On a related note, I'm reminded of two standard arguments:
* "There's no viruses/malware on the Iphone. That only applies to people who have jailbroken their phones. They deserve what they get."
* "What do you mean I can't do [insert basic task] on an Iphone? Of course it can, you just have to jailbreak it." (Apple, it Just Works - you Just have to jailbreak it to get it to Work.)
And get off the citation needed nonsense. Around here, most people actually know what they're talking about.
Citation needed?
(sorry)
Just to add to this with another example: for Symbian/Maemo development, it uses C++ with Qt, and the tools/IDE are also free. I've had no resource problems running the phone simulator - and it's simulated rather than emulated, in that I believe the code is compiled natively for your development platform, so it runs quickly.
Good thing about Qt is it also supports Windows, Linux and OS X, so just about everything.
Kindle will win, once it also does full colour with fast refresh.
Amiga will win, once it gets 16 core CPUs.
See, it's easy to say a product will win, when you can make it up.
(For years, the Iphones had rather low resolution, even my old cheap 5800 beats it; interesting that only now resolution is suddenly an important feature when comparing phones...)
Amazon missed the cool or nerd boat (iXXX, Android).
But I'd say most companies are primarily concerned with the "mainstream boat", than whether a small per cent of the market are nerds, or think they're cool to have an Apple logo, so I don't think that's the end of the world for them. E.g., Maemo is on the nerd boat, but Nokia for now I imagine get a lot more market share (and money) from Symbian.
Hear, hear.
Before the Ipad, everyone understood this - any story about a "colour e-reader" was full of criticisms questioning whether this was really colour e-ink, or just an LCD, and then people would rightly point out the differences.
But since the Ipad? Nothing but endless advertising about how it's a "revolutionary e-reader, much better than any other", as if the whole netbook revolution never happened (not to mention there are other tablets). I'm not sure if it's just a different set of people who are genuinely ignorant, or whether they intentionally ignore the differences with e-ink, in an attempt to find something the Ipad can be best at.
But, for now, they're different worlds. And I think it'll stay that way for a few more years at least.
Indeed, I agree. But mark my words, in years to come when there is convergence, and other companies have made that technology happen, we'll have people falsely claiming "Apple did it first" or "Apple popularised tablets for e-reading".
typing away on his LCD-equipped PC that, oddly enough, always worked just fine for reading before.
Sure, but the difference is that no one ever suggested LCD devices like netbooks for e-reading. It was well understood that "e-readers" had specific advantages (not just the display, but also battery life).
Then along came the Ipad, and we have no end of astroturfing of how it's a much better "e-reader" because it's also colour and does Internet (possibly because people can't think of any other niche for it?) ... except these people never seem to include the many already existing (and far cheaper) devices like netbooks (or indeed other tablets). So drawing attention to the Ipad seems reasonable.
Plus, he said "like an iPad" - if we get the Apple iProduct Placement everytime a generic term is mentioned (it's not "on your phone" anymore round here, it's "on your iPhone and other devices"), you can hardly complain the one time it's a negative comment, especially when, as I explain, singling out the Ipad actually is reasonable for once.