Well the Mac Mini except for the underpowered revision one was never really cheap but they had a good price/performance ratio and are usually among the most solid machines Apple builds (mac minis normally never die - lets see if the new revision is not again a thermal bomb with the power brick pushed in into the case, Apple has done screwed up thermal designs in the past), but the price is not justifyable anymore.
They never really competed on price since for the príce of a mini you could get in the PC camp something more along the lines of a Mac Pro, but they competed on the price/noise/performance/durability ration. You simply could not get such a durable, well performing, low power low noise machine in the PC camp for a long time (now you can, and I am not speaking of the Atom garbage), while still being somewhat affordable.
But this time at least for the european prices Apple definitely overdid it, the comments are pretty much all the same.
a) I am glad I got a last revision machine b) The price is not justifyable for that machine anymore c) I wont upgrade
Those are die hard mac fanatics who usually buy everything Macwise.
I personally do not think Apple wants to sell it as a luxury item, I personally think they want to ride the iPhone devs have to use a Mac wave some more, by pushing the price closer to the notebook versions of their machines and higer up than the iPad. In other word they try to penny out again the poor iPhone devs with their monopoly. The Mac Mini has been a very popular machine in that crowd because it was the cheapest entry and a desktop machine.
Well it would not be the first machine Apple releases with thermal problems. Apple 2, some generations of Macbook Pros, Every generation of the macbook air so far, and the famous Cube, the predecessor to the Mac Mini.
Thats one of my fears as well, I have with this machine, pushing the power brick into this small cases screams for thermal problems. But the entire thing is somewhat moot to me anyway, since Apple outpriced it for me (not that I could not afford it, but for the small gains in speed this significant price hike over here in Europe is not justified, and I am not going to upgrade, for the first time regarding mac minis, I so far have had every revision)
Time will tell if the new generation is as solid as the third revision, which has been the best so far, from a bug speed and durability point of view. I somehow doubt it.
800 Euros for the entry version, guess this time Apple overdid it, if you check out the Apple forums here, the comment almost is the same. The price hike is not justified the revision three is not that much slower but way cheaper. At least over here this thing will be lying untouched in the stores.
I am myself in the same camp of not buying it, the revision 4 will be the first mac mini revision I wont upgrade to. Apple this time overdid it with their price hikes. If the price of the minis do not change I will switch to similar boxes from the Windows/Linux camp once my trusty Mini dies on me (which hopefully wont happen for a long time, those boxes are very solidly built)
It definitely would not hurt them, Apple is always the best when they are the underdog, they have a tendency to be major assholes once they have success. It was like that in the 80s when they sued everyone for the graphical userinterface, which they obviously did not invent (thanks to that we got stuck with windows and a Microsoft monopoly instead of the back then superior gem)
It is about time Apple gets a severe smack on its hands again so that Steve starts to behave decently again.
I rather doubt that apple will collect less data than google, after all you have to collect data to get personalized ads in. From what I can see with apple is, if they can get their way through they not for now but in the forseeable future will screw you big time. First you get lots of revenue share from running their ads over time this part will decrease more and more until their is a huge outcry (well and even that it will be questionable if apple is going to stop). That is the crux of having a monopoly. Oh no Apple will never do that you might say, well have a look at their latest Eulas, which screwed a not unsigificant part of their developer base. And this was not the first time something like that happened. I rather trust Google to behave because they do not establish a monopoly on their platform (they cannot even) than Apple which has become more and more nasty over the last years.
Except that anyone can make a custom rom which uses bing on android without google prohibiting it, some phone manufacturers already do that for the chinese market.
Anyone can add those who has the android sources, some phone manufacturers already change the default search to bing in their android based phones for china... All you have to do is to roll a custom rom...
Problem simply is to run their own ad network, Apple will collect the same data as Google, so whom do you trust more. Uncle Steve with his dictatorial tendency who is going to screw you whenever he can or Google which more or less behaved but have a tendency to collect more data than necessary.
This is not only against google, google is the biggest target, but they hit Microsoft Yahoo and others as well, and also the developers who now have one and only one ad vendor which can provide them the revenue for their free versions, which means they are at the merits of Big Brother to give them a decent share. Which in the long run will not happen, Apple will take more and more of that share since there is no competition.
Funny thing is that there is no outcry by the developer community. Many depend on ads to provide free versions of their programs, having only one choice (this does not only hit admob but all others as well, like Microsoft, yahoo etc... which are in the same business) means that Apple can dictate what they get. Which means they simply can reduce the ad revenue of everyone by 90% just if Steve Jobs thinks it is a good idea. There is no way I am going to enter iPhone development, this reminds me more and more on the gold rush, where the only ones except for a few who really earned anything were the vendors who sold the shovels and bought the gold. The main difference is there is only one vendor who can dictate the prices on any front. Android development looks better every day, the toolchain is top notch, google does not dictate anything and does not want to, the system is open enough so that no one can pull an Apple stunt and the market is picking up as well revenuewise for the authors.
I just wonder if this was the last straw to drive the developers away from the iphone in the long run, lots of them already have planned to at least go to other platforms as well, when Apple pulled the last stunt with their developers toolchain eula a few months ago.
Well the usual HTC timescale is, 1 line update per year with every phone of the line slipping to a lower level and every three months a new phone per line. (Currently they run on android 2 levels of lines, with one high one mid, the low range currently is the phased out models which are still sold but not updated anymore)
Every phone gets relatively fast a bugfix update if it is needed and then it takes a while for one big update but usually you get one big update. As for android, I expect the Legend will get 2.2 but it might take a whole, I do not see anything which would prevent 2.2 or 2.3 when it is released to be run on the magic like hardware which the Legend still is (Legend -> Hero -> Magic, basically the same phone), but the Legend like all HTC models probably will be phased out by the end of the year so 2.3 will only be available via hacked roms, if at all. I am not sure how the hacking situation on the Legend is.
So there is a 50/50 chance currently HTC will run a Legend successor with G1ish specs, but it is very likely that a Nexus One derivate (N1 / Desire/Evo derivate) will replace the Legend as mid range model next year and the Legend line will replace the G1ish line as low end unsupported model. (unless HTC changes their ways due to the bad reputation they currently seem to get over their update behavior)
Problem with all those backported roms is it really depends on the drivers if they can get further, if htc or another company does not leak additional drivers (thanks to closed source drivers and linuxs constantly changing driver api) things never will work as expected in future versions.
Problem with HTC is simply the long term support. HTC usually leapfrogs Apples phones within 3 months, and within 6 months you can hope to get a software update to the next Android version. Just ask the Hero owners, and before the HTC touch owners, or the ones owning a HTC HD/HD2 etc... all phones HTC abandoned within a years timeframe. (The GSM Hero owners are still waiting for the promised 2.1 update outside of Taiwan and 2.2 will never show up)
The alternative to that is Motorola, which so far behaves, but has locked down the bootloader to the Milestone so if Motorola decides to abandon the phone the community cannot even take over.
Alternatively you can get the HTC manufactured Google Nexus one, which has a share of problems of its own, like a lousy touch screen which goes bonkers from time to time, bad antennas, but hardwarewise outside of that is amazing and probably will get long term support the usual Apple timeframe.
I really tried to stay away from Apple and I have settled down to the Nexus one despite its flaws for the moment and probably until end of the year 2011 but after that if the Android situation will not become better than I will give in...
Problem with all this was that BP outsourced the drilling to a subcontractor, this is a thing which is not really often mentioned in the news, so theoretically BP did not fuck it up but the subcontractor which was specialized on drilling. Not that I want to defend BP here, but this is a thing which should be mentioned more often.
You are taling about the CDMA version, I am talking about the GSM version which is not there. And the only statement from HTC was that all their 2010 phones will get 2.2 which leaves the Hero out.
I agree here, there already is one universal format, it is called ePub and does an excellent job, all it leaves out is the way the DRM has to be implemented, which could be added in a universal way. Unfortunately Amazon went the way of a proprietary formt (aka former mobibook format) with its kindle instead of trying to behave and to go with the already back then existing ePub standard. Now thanks to Amazon and the ignorance of their customers (who could not really be blamed, they could not know) we have an open standard and something only Amazon is allowed to implement in its full extent.
I second that, I only can recommend, stay away from HTC unless Google provides the official OS updates or you are willing to root your phone and let xda-developers (hopefully) do its job. HTC plainly sucks regarding OS updates. First it looks fine, you get your phone usually within the first weeks you get a small bugfix update. Later the problems start, have a special support problem, ask their support drones, as soon as you have the word apple in your form, you get the automated standard answer, we do not support apple, no matter if it has something to do with their non existent support of their toolchain for apple or not (in my case it was not), they dont even bother to read the mail. Add to that that after a few weeks they see you as an ex customer, if you are lucky you get another os update with serious delays, if you are unlucky and were along the last who bought the phone, you are entirely screwed.
Not that Dalvik really was that slow before, Google did some serious considerations before releasing Dalvik into the wild.
a) First use lots of native code in the libs to deal with the fact that they do not have a JIT, so apps run more in native space than in a normal Java VM usually.
b) Make a registere based vm instead of a stack based one, the result is smaller bytecode and less operations and probably a faster per java instruction execution on bytelevel than in an unoptimized native java vm.
They have always been aware of the non jit deficit however, but they clearly said, if the tradeoff for this was to increase ram they were not going to add it, they only will add it if they have a jit on their hands which is not a burden on ram, and in the meanwhile they will use all other options they have to improve speed (which were quite a lot)
So just if a few selective benchmarks were not that fast on Dalvik does not mean the average programs were which probably spent 80% of their code in native library code anyway.
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Well the Mac Mini except for the underpowered revision one was never really cheap but they had a good price/performance ratio and are usually among the most solid machines Apple builds (mac minis normally never die - lets see if the new revision is not again a thermal bomb with the power brick pushed in into the case, Apple has done screwed up thermal designs in the past), but the price is not justifyable anymore.
They never really competed on price since for the príce of a mini you could get in the PC camp something more along the lines of a Mac Pro, but they competed on the price/noise/performance/durability ration. You simply could not get such a durable, well performing, low power low noise machine in the PC camp for a long time (now you can, and I am not speaking of the Atom garbage), while still being somewhat affordable.
But this time at least for the european prices Apple definitely overdid it, the comments are pretty much all the same.
a) I am glad I got a last revision machine
b) The price is not justifyable for that machine anymore
c) I wont upgrade
Those are die hard mac fanatics who usually buy everything Macwise.
I personally do not think Apple wants to sell it as a luxury item, I personally think they want to ride the iPhone devs have to use a Mac wave some more, by pushing the price closer to the notebook versions of their machines and higer up than the iPad. In other word they try to penny out again the poor iPhone devs with their monopoly. The Mac Mini has been a very popular machine in that crowd because it was the cheapest entry and a desktop machine.
Well it would not be the first machine Apple releases with thermal problems.
Apple 2, some generations of Macbook Pros, Every generation of the macbook air so far,
and the famous Cube, the predecessor to the Mac Mini.
Thats one of my fears as well, I have with this machine, pushing the power brick into this small cases screams for thermal problems. But the entire thing is somewhat moot to me anyway, since Apple outpriced it for me (not that I could not afford it, but for the small gains in speed this significant price hike over here in Europe is not justified, and I am not going to upgrade, for the first time regarding mac minis, I so far have had every revision)
Time will tell if the new generation is as solid as the third revision, which has been the best so far, from a bug speed and durability point of view. I somehow doubt it.
800 Euros for the entry version, guess this time Apple overdid it, if you check out the Apple forums here, the comment almost is the same. The price hike is not justified the revision three is not that much slower but way cheaper.
At least over here this thing will be lying untouched in the stores.
I am myself in the same camp of not buying it, the revision 4 will be the first mac mini revision I wont upgrade to.
Apple this time overdid it with their price hikes. If the price of the minis do not change I will switch to similar boxes from the Windows/Linux camp once my trusty Mini dies on me (which hopefully wont happen for a long time, those boxes are very solidly built)
All our wieners in front of Steves face...
It definitely would not hurt them, Apple is always the best when they are the underdog, they have a tendency to be major assholes once they have success. It was like that in the 80s when they sued everyone for the graphical userinterface, which they obviously did not invent (thanks to that we got stuck with windows and a Microsoft monopoly instead of the back then superior gem)
It is about time Apple gets a severe smack on its hands again so that Steve starts to behave decently again.
Apple bashing is much more fun, since they behave even worse, and their fanboys are way more ignorant...
They can on Android...
I rather doubt that apple will collect less data than google, after all you have to collect data to get personalized ads in. From what I can see with apple is, if they can get their way through they not for now but in the forseeable future will screw you big time. First you get lots of revenue share from running their ads over time this part will decrease more and more until their is a huge outcry (well and even that it will be questionable if apple is going to stop).
That is the crux of having a monopoly. Oh no Apple will never do that you might say, well have a look at their latest Eulas, which screwed a not unsigificant part of their developer base. And this was not the first time something like that happened.
I rather trust Google to behave because they do not establish a monopoly on their platform (they cannot even) than Apple which has become more and more nasty over the last years.
I assume 2.2 should be a sure thing on the Legend
although it might take a while,
2.3 is questionable (probably most likely not)
Except that anyone can make a custom rom which uses bing on android without google prohibiting it, some phone manufacturers already do that for the chinese market.
Anyone can add those who has the android sources, some phone manufacturers already change the default search to bing in their android based phones for china...
All you have to do is to roll a custom rom...
Google will permit it on Android...
Problem simply is to run their own ad network, Apple will collect the same data as Google, so whom do you trust more. Uncle Steve with his dictatorial tendency who is going to screw you whenever he can or Google which more or less behaved but have a tendency to collect more data than necessary.
This is not only against google, google is the biggest target, but they hit Microsoft Yahoo and others as well, and also the developers who now have one and only one ad vendor which can provide them the revenue for their free versions, which means they are at the merits of Big Brother to give them a decent share.
Which in the long run will not happen, Apple will take more and more of that share since there is no competition.
It is a problem for developers as well.
Funny thing is that there is no outcry by the developer community. Many depend on ads to provide free versions of their programs, having only one choice (this does not only hit admob but all others as well, like Microsoft, yahoo etc... which are in the same business) means that Apple can dictate what they get. Which means they simply can reduce the ad revenue of everyone by 90% just if Steve Jobs thinks it is a good idea.
There is no way I am going to enter iPhone development, this reminds me more and more on the gold rush, where the only ones except for a few who really earned anything were the vendors who sold the shovels and bought the gold. The main difference is there is only one vendor who can dictate the prices on any front.
Android development looks better every day, the toolchain is top notch, google does not dictate anything and does not want to, the system is open enough so that no one can pull an Apple stunt and the market is picking up as well revenuewise for the authors.
I just wonder if this was the last straw to drive the developers away from the iphone in the long run, lots of them already have planned to at least go to other platforms as well, when Apple pulled the last stunt with their developers toolchain eula a few months ago.
Well the usual HTC timescale is, 1 line update per year with every phone of the line slipping to a lower level and every three months a new phone per line. (Currently they run on android 2 levels of lines, with one high one mid, the low range currently is the phased out models which are still sold but not updated anymore)
Every phone gets relatively fast a bugfix update if it is needed and then it takes a while for one big update but usually you get one big update.
As for android, I expect the Legend will get 2.2 but it might take a whole, I do not see anything which would prevent 2.2 or 2.3 when it is released to be run on the magic like hardware which the Legend still is (Legend -> Hero -> Magic, basically the same phone), but the Legend like all HTC models probably will be phased out by the end of the year so 2.3 will only be available via hacked roms, if at all. I am not sure how the hacking situation on the Legend is.
So there is a 50/50 chance currently HTC will run a Legend successor with G1ish specs, but it is very likely that a Nexus One derivate (N1 / Desire /Evo derivate) will replace the Legend as mid range model next year and the Legend line will replace the G1ish line as low end unsupported model. (unless HTC changes their ways due to the bad reputation they currently seem to get over their update behavior)
Problem with all those backported roms is it really depends on the drivers if they can get further, if htc or another company does not leak additional drivers (thanks to closed source drivers and linuxs constantly changing driver api) things never will work as expected in future versions.
The legend should be ok for 2.2 but dont put too much hope into getting 2.3 ever. Usually with htc phones you get one big update and then be done...
Problem with HTC is simply the long term support. HTC usually leapfrogs Apples phones within 3 months, and within 6 months you can hope to get a software update to the next Android version. Just ask the Hero owners, and before the HTC touch owners, or the ones owning a HTC HD/HD2 etc... all phones HTC abandoned within a years timeframe.
(The GSM Hero owners are still waiting for the promised 2.1 update outside of Taiwan and 2.2 will never show up)
The alternative to that is Motorola, which so far behaves, but has locked down the bootloader to the Milestone so if Motorola decides to abandon the phone the community cannot even take over.
Alternatively you can get the HTC manufactured Google Nexus one, which has a share of problems of its own, like a lousy touch screen which goes bonkers from time to time, bad antennas, but hardwarewise outside of that is amazing and probably will get long term support the usual Apple timeframe.
I really tried to stay away from Apple and I have settled down to the Nexus one despite its flaws for the moment and probably until end of the year 2011 but after that if the Android situation will not become better than I will give in...
Problem with all this was that BP outsourced the drilling to a subcontractor, this is a thing which is not really often mentioned in the news, so theoretically BP did not fuck it up but the subcontractor which was specialized on drilling. Not that I want to defend BP here, but this is a thing which should be mentioned more often.
You are taling about the CDMA version, I am talking about the GSM version which is not there. And the only statement from HTC was that all their 2010 phones will get 2.2 which leaves the Hero out.
I agree here, there already is one universal format, it is called ePub and does an excellent job, all it leaves out is the way the DRM has to be implemented, which could be added in a universal way. Unfortunately Amazon went the way of a proprietary formt (aka former mobibook format) with its kindle instead of trying to behave and to go with the already back then existing ePub standard. Now thanks to Amazon and the ignorance of their customers (who could not really be blamed, they could not know) we have an open standard and something only Amazon is allowed to implement in its full extent.
I second that, I only can recommend, stay away from HTC unless Google provides the official OS updates or you are willing to root your phone and let xda-developers (hopefully) do its job.
HTC plainly sucks regarding OS updates. First it looks fine, you get your phone usually within the first weeks you get a small bugfix update. Later the problems start, have a special support problem, ask their support drones, as soon as you have the word apple in your form, you get the automated standard answer, we do not support apple, no matter if it has something to do with their non existent support of their toolchain for apple or not (in my case it was not), they dont even bother to read the mail.
Add to that that after a few weeks they see you as an ex customer, if you are lucky you get another os update with serious delays, if you are unlucky and were along the last who bought the phone, you are entirely screwed.
Not that Dalvik really was that slow before, Google did some serious considerations before releasing Dalvik into the wild.
a) First use lots of native code in the libs to deal with the fact that they do not have a JIT, so apps run more in native space than in a normal Java VM usually.
b) Make a registere based vm instead of a stack based one, the result is smaller bytecode and less operations and probably a faster per java instruction execution on bytelevel than in an unoptimized native java vm.
They have always been aware of the non jit deficit however, but they clearly said, if the tradeoff for this was to increase ram they were not going to add it, they only will add it if they have a jit on their hands which is not a burden on ram, and in the meanwhile they will use all other options they have to improve speed (which were quite a lot)
So just if a few selective benchmarks were not that fast on Dalvik does not mean the average programs were which probably spent 80% of their code in native library code anyway.
They worked at palm and now at HP... but there are others who have recreated BeOS as a clean room implementation.