"Also if you raise minimum wage you know unemployment is going to increase."
Do I know this? If so, how many? And what's the tradeoff?
At a certain level, those jobs have to be done. You can't fire some and push overtime on the rest, because overtime is even more expensive. Do you cut hours and then hire more part time help to cover? (In which case you've increased the number of jobs.)
And do higher minimum wages make jobs more attractive, thus increasing the number of applications, and workers? A Princeton study said yes. Other studies say no, but that the effects aren't directly proportional. A, say, 10 percent increase would most likely lead to only a 1 percent reduction in employment.
See? Even studies of facts don't help, as two different economists can often look at the same facts and draw different conclusions. (Usually ones that suit their existing biases.)
"And many bankers knew the derivatives they created from those bad loans (which they sold back and forth to reach a leverage of about 30x) were not worthy of the AAA rating the ratings agencies gave them."
Hell, some companies deliberately set things up so they would fail. Check out the Magnetar Trades...
"The hedge fund bought the riskiest portion of a kind of securities known as collateralized debt obligations -- CDOs. If housing prices kept rising, this would provide a solid return for many years. But that's not what hedge funds are after. They want outsized gains, the sooner the better, and Magnetar set itself up for a huge win: It placed bets that portions of its own deals would fail."
"Magnetar pressed to include riskier assets in their CDOs that would make the investments more vulnerable to failure. "
In other words, they set up unstable investment funds in an increasingly risky market. They then bet against (hedged) their own funds so that they'd make even more money when the failed. Which then happened.
The worse part? Almost everything done was legal under the rules at the time. CDO's were a completely unregulated market. Can't even arrest the bastards and shoot 'em...
"Google seems to be on the side of "if it can't run well, you don't want it" while Apple seems to be on the side of "let's put these features that might not work well on your phone..."
Wow. NICE spin.
Whatever happened to that whole let the user decide thing?
Though as the article points out, the users don't really have a choice, since the manufacturer's seem to be on the side that's saying, "Does your 10-month-old phone suck? Can't run the latest version of Android? Buy a new phone!"
"All apple did was bring these things together..."
That's it, huh? Then what stopped anyone else from doing the same, exact thing? Nothing. That's what. Anyone else could have done it... but they didn't. Apple did it, and did it well.
You may not like some of Apple's policies. Hell, I don't like all of them either.
But they changed the world. What have you done today?
The Prada was a touch-screen based phone, true... but the interface was built on top of Flash Lite, which had limited support for touch. No gestures. Practically every review stated that the interface was inconsistent at best. It was designed and built for the luxury market, and as such it cost 50% more ($775) than an iPhone.
The industry follows success. The Prada was a flop.
And since Android, prior to iPhone, was busy cloning the Blackberry... no. Or rather, yes. We probably would have gotten there... eventually.
Like it or not, the iPhone was an inflection point in the industry.
"On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other. ~ Stewart Brand"
"Those that go for branded goods are doing so for the brand, not for any superior quality"
Android is a brand, too. Is it not?
"Does a rolex really tell time more accurately than a cheap watch?"
Is it made of better materials? (Stainless Steel or Gold vs plastic) Is the design better? Is the manufacturing better? Is the quality better? People pay for those things, and you don't develop a high-end brand selling shoddy goods.
There's no truer example of this than Intel's Unltrabook initiative. Manufacturer's are trying to clone the Air, and their prices are ending up to be about the same -- if not more. Using better materials (metal and not plastic) and building to the same quality levels (CNC cases, size, weight) simply costs more money.
In fact, trying to produce quality goods AND meet the Air's price point had some manufacturers going to Intel and asking them to sell them processors at half price.
I come here to see what's going on, to learn, and to contribute. My opinions are mine and mine alone. If you come here solely to flame people who want to have adult discussions... and you get off on that...
Odd, the direction of the commentary seemed to be that since Siri was acquired by Apple (over a year ago), Apple deserved no credit whatsoever for their foresight, integration, or for Siri's continued development.
"The narrative about Google is different, often involving its strength in creating platforms for open-source/community development..."
Yep, smart marketing move there. They're very involved in open sourcing technology and creating platforms for development...
Except when they refuse to do so (search and map technology), or when it suits them (withholding "open" source for the "good" of the platform), or when they allow carriers to lock down their technology for them, or when they create platforms for development that they then shut down (Translate API's), or create features and technology that they then retract and subvert to their own ends (Reader features being removed in order to force people into Google+).
"In any case, the Android that Google bought, 3 major versions ago, is very different than the one that exists now."
"It's only a software update, and would work perfectly on your iPhone4 if Apple didn't want your money so bad."
Got a cite for this, or just an opinion? The 4S has an A5 dual-core chip vs. the A4 in the 4. The 4S has 3G speeds that are twice as fast. The noise cancellation in the 4S is improved, allowing for better, cleaner recordings. And the Siri team is already on record as saying that they were forced to make "compromises" to Siri in order to get it to work on the previous generation of phones.
Compromise is not a word Apple likes.
The end result of all of the hardware changes adds up to getting a better voice recording, encoding it faster, shipping the command out faster, and getting a faster response.
So... perfectly? Guess that depends on your definition of perfection, now doesn't it?
"The option to install a third party keyboard (second post to this thread) doesn't add much complexity."
It's whether or not you let 3rd-parties start mucking around in the system internals. Under iOS Apps are sandboxed so they can't do much mischief. Installing system level-code that has access to everything typed on the device?
Things like that are a differentiation with Android. You should be pleased.
Free and unrestricted access to system internals is also why the marketplace also has issues with malware. Again, tradeoffs.
And your comments regarding the number of problems you've seen with Apple hardware run counter to their consumer satisfaction ratings.
As to the "shill" remark.
"You're a shill." "...you're simply incapable of understanding media. Asperger?" "I hope that when you grow up, you become more honest. Otherwise, you'll be unsuitable for politics." " Grow up or grow a brain, and your problems will solve themselves." "...is both wrong and moronic."
Are you a child, unable to hold a calm, rational, adult-level conversation without always adding personal attacks and insults?
Google "Android Voice Commands Introduced". You'll see Froyo, 2.2, got Voice Actions mid-2010. Google "iPhone Voice Commands Introduced", and you'll see Apple's iPhone 3GS shipped with voice commands in the summer of 2009. Vlingo was first released for the iPhone back in 2008. Vlingo was released for Android in 2009.
Facts. Google them, check for yourself, and then eat your own... ah... never mind.
"No doubt Siri has advanced and evolved compared to early relases of Dragon, but people have been working on the idea and enhancing long before your iPhone existed."
As you may or may not know, Dragon is a product by a company named Nuance. Nuance provides Siri's speech-to-text recognition, the result of which is then handled off to Siri's NLP (natural language processing) servers for analysis and action.
So the front-end of Siri is Dragon. The back end, however, is something different...
"The onus is on the whole rest of the industry to start delivering products and services that work as well as Apple's do so that Apple can't keep using that strategy."
Right. Only they can't. Or won't. It takes care and attention to detail and it takes time and money that many are simply unwilling to spend.
Or they do try, and then find out that it's not quite that simple. Look at all of the companies that 'dissed the Air, then went begging to Intel for bargains on their processors because they found that they simply couldn't match Apple's quality level AND Apple's price.
Or how HP dropped WebOS when they found that they'd need to spend a few years (and dollars) catching up in the market.
Or as the old saying goes, "If it were easy, everyone would do it."
"The original iPod had far less functionality than every other mp3 player on the market at the time."
The Creative NOMAD Jukebox, the hard drive based MP3 player of the time, weighed nearly a pound with it's 2.5" 6GB notebook drive, ran for an astounding 4 hours on it's NiCad battery [sarcasm], and retailed for $500.
The original iPod had a 1.8" 5GB drive, scroll wheel, ran for 10 hours on it's LiPo battery, weighed 6.5 oz, and cost $399.
So I guess it depends on what you mean by "functionality". Are we talking about a checklist of half-implemented features, or about a device people could easily learn, easily carry, and easily use for hours on end?
You say "choice" like it's the end all and be all of design. It's not. Choice brings with it complexity, and that's against Apple's DNA. Choice brings controls, and options, and configuration screens, and it also brings confusion and doubt.
The very fact that you're here on/. means, in all likelihood, you're a geek of some sort and geeks thrive on complexity. But many people do not. Many people, in fact, don't have a love affair with technology. They simply want to get whatever it is that they're doing DONE so they can get on with life.
Apple's design ethic is simplicity and minimalism. Again, some people want knobs and controls and widgets and options and clutter. And again, others don't. Some people care about features and checklists. Some care about design.
There's a market for both.
Why are you arguing? Some people choose iOS. Others Android. But it's odd. The people whose mantra is "choice" always seem outraged when that choice is Apple.
Slashdot Mirror
Read the following article....
http://www.fastcompany.com/1779611/priming-whole-foods-derren-brown
You only think you're not being influenced.
"Also if you raise minimum wage you know unemployment is going to increase."
Do I know this? If so, how many? And what's the tradeoff?
At a certain level, those jobs have to be done. You can't fire some and push overtime on the rest, because overtime is even more expensive. Do you cut hours and then hire more part time help to cover? (In which case you've increased the number of jobs.)
And do higher minimum wages make jobs more attractive, thus increasing the number of applications, and workers? A Princeton study said yes. Other studies say no, but that the effects aren't directly proportional. A, say, 10 percent increase would most likely lead to only a 1 percent reduction in employment.
See? Even studies of facts don't help, as two different economists can often look at the same facts and draw different conclusions. (Usually ones that suit their existing biases.)
"And many bankers knew the derivatives they created from those bad loans (which they sold back and forth to reach a leverage of about 30x) were not worthy of the AAA rating the ratings agencies gave them."
Hell, some companies deliberately set things up so they would fail. Check out the Magnetar Trades...
"The hedge fund bought the riskiest portion of a kind of securities known as collateralized debt obligations -- CDOs. If housing prices kept rising, this would provide a solid return for many years. But that's not what hedge funds are after. They want outsized gains, the sooner the better, and Magnetar set itself up for a huge win: It placed bets that portions of its own deals would fail."
"Magnetar pressed to include riskier assets in their CDOs that would make the investments more vulnerable to failure. "
In other words, they set up unstable investment funds in an increasingly risky market. They then bet against (hedged) their own funds so that they'd make even more money when the failed. Which then happened.
The worse part? Almost everything done was legal under the rules at the time. CDO's were a completely unregulated market. Can't even arrest the bastards and shoot 'em...
http://www.propublica.org/article/the-magnetar-trade-how-one-hedge-fund-helped-keep-the-housing-bubble-going/single
So 90% of Android users are clueless? After only being out for a few weeks, iOS 5 is now installed on 1 out of 3 compatible Apple devices.
Just saying...
http://www.slashgear.com/ios-5-is-now-installed-on-1-out-of-3-compatible-apple-devices-17188562/
"With iOS there's also the $99 per year tax to run applications from outside the App Store."
There's a $99 per year fee to DEVELOP applications. Are you an iOS developer?
"Google seems to be on the side of "if it can't run well, you don't want it" while Apple seems to be on the side of "let's put these features that might not work well on your phone..."
Wow. NICE spin.
Whatever happened to that whole let the user decide thing?
Though as the article points out, the users don't really have a choice, since the manufacturer's seem to be on the side that's saying, "Does your 10-month-old phone suck? Can't run the latest version of Android? Buy a new phone!"
"All apple did was bring these things together..."
That's it, huh? Then what stopped anyone else from doing the same, exact thing? Nothing. That's what. Anyone else could have done it... but they didn't. Apple did it, and did it well.
You may not like some of Apple's policies. Hell, I don't like all of them either.
But they changed the world. What have you done today?
The Prada was a touch-screen based phone, true... but the interface was built on top of Flash Lite, which had limited support for touch. No gestures. Practically every review stated that the interface was inconsistent at best. It was designed and built for the luxury market, and as such it cost 50% more ($775) than an iPhone.
The industry follows success. The Prada was a flop.
And since Android, prior to iPhone, was busy cloning the Blackberry... no. Or rather, yes. We probably would have gotten there... eventually.
Like it or not, the iPhone was an inflection point in the industry.
"... and tell me why IBM doesnt get the credit for a keyless touch screen phone?"
It was huge. It was heavy. Battery life sucked. The screen sucked. It cost nearly a thousand dollars. And because of all of that, no one bought one.
You don't get a lot of credit for failure.
How about the whole quote?
"On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other. ~ Stewart Brand"
"That was the NeXT philosophy, and it was only true for a very small subset of people..."
NeXT was selling $10,000 workstation-class machines to people used to buying Suns.
So yeah, a very small subset of people...
Given that Android is sold by dozens of handset manufacturers on about twice as many carriers in more countries... that number seems about right.
But don't let facts spoil your fantasy.
"Those that go for branded goods are doing so for the brand, not for any superior quality"
Android is a brand, too. Is it not?
"Does a rolex really tell time more accurately than a cheap watch?"
Is it made of better materials? (Stainless Steel or Gold vs plastic) Is the design better? Is the manufacturing better? Is the quality better? People pay for those things, and you don't develop a high-end brand selling shoddy goods.
There's no truer example of this than Intel's Unltrabook initiative. Manufacturer's are trying to clone the Air, and their prices are ending up to be about the same -- if not more. Using better materials (metal and not plastic) and building to the same quality levels (CNC cases, size, weight) simply costs more money.
In fact, trying to produce quality goods AND meet the Air's price point had some manufacturers going to Intel and asking them to sell them processors at half price.
I come here to see what's going on, to learn, and to contribute. My opinions are mine and mine alone. If you come here solely to flame people who want to have adult discussions... and you get off on that...
Sad, really.
Odd, the direction of the commentary seemed to be that since Siri was acquired by Apple (over a year ago), Apple deserved no credit whatsoever for their foresight, integration, or for Siri's continued development.
"The narrative about Google is different, often involving its strength in creating platforms for open-source/community development..."
Yep, smart marketing move there. They're very involved in open sourcing technology and creating platforms for development...
Except when they refuse to do so (search and map technology), or when it suits them (withholding "open" source for the "good" of the platform), or when they allow carriers to lock down their technology for them, or when they create platforms for development that they then shut down (Translate API's), or create features and technology that they then retract and subvert to their own ends (Reader features being removed in order to force people into Google+).
"In any case, the Android that Google bought, 3 major versions ago, is very different than the one that exists now."
As is the company itself.
http://www.isights.org/2011/04/google-do-no-evil.html
"It's only a software update, and would work perfectly on your iPhone4 if Apple didn't want your money so bad."
Got a cite for this, or just an opinion? The 4S has an A5 dual-core chip vs. the A4 in the 4. The 4S has 3G speeds that are twice as fast. The noise cancellation in the 4S is improved, allowing for better, cleaner recordings. And the Siri team is already on record as saying that they were forced to make "compromises" to Siri in order to get it to work on the previous generation of phones.
Compromise is not a word Apple likes.
The end result of all of the hardware changes adds up to getting a better voice recording, encoding it faster, shipping the command out faster, and getting a faster response.
So... perfectly? Guess that depends on your definition of perfection, now doesn't it?
"The option to install a third party keyboard (second post to this thread) doesn't add much complexity."
It's whether or not you let 3rd-parties start mucking around in the system internals. Under iOS Apps are sandboxed so they can't do much mischief. Installing system level-code that has access to everything typed on the device?
Things like that are a differentiation with Android. You should be pleased.
Free and unrestricted access to system internals is also why the marketplace also has issues with malware. Again, tradeoffs.
And your comments regarding the number of problems you've seen with Apple hardware run counter to their consumer satisfaction ratings.
As to the "shill" remark.
"You're a shill."
"...you're simply incapable of understanding media. Asperger?"
"I hope that when you grow up, you become more honest. Otherwise, you'll be unsuitable for politics."
" Grow up or grow a brain, and your problems will solve themselves."
"...is both wrong and moronic."
Are you a child, unable to hold a calm, rational, adult-level conversation without always adding personal attacks and insults?
Google "Android Voice Commands Introduced". You'll see Froyo, 2.2, got Voice Actions mid-2010. Google "iPhone Voice Commands Introduced", and you'll see Apple's iPhone 3GS shipped with voice commands in the summer of 2009. Vlingo was first released for the iPhone back in 2008. Vlingo was released for Android in 2009.
Facts. Google them, check for yourself, and then eat your own... ah... never mind.
"Android phones have been doing that from the start."
Froyo. 2.2. Hardly from the start...
"No doubt Siri has advanced and evolved compared to early relases of Dragon, but people have been working on the idea and enhancing long before your iPhone existed."
As you may or may not know, Dragon is a product by a company named Nuance. Nuance provides Siri's speech-to-text recognition, the result of which is then handled off to Siri's NLP (natural language processing) servers for analysis and action.
So the front-end of Siri is Dragon. The back end, however, is something different...
"The onus is on the whole rest of the industry to start delivering products and services that work as well as Apple's do so that Apple can't keep using that strategy."
Right. Only they can't. Or won't. It takes care and attention to detail and it takes time and money that many are simply unwilling to spend.
Or they do try, and then find out that it's not quite that simple. Look at all of the companies that 'dissed the Air, then went begging to Intel for bargains on their processors because they found that they simply couldn't match Apple's quality level AND Apple's price.
Or how HP dropped WebOS when they found that they'd need to spend a few years (and dollars) catching up in the market.
Or as the old saying goes, "If it were easy, everyone would do it."
"However, it was not developed by Apple."
Shall we talk about a little company that Google acquired a few years back named Android, Inc.?
"The original iPod had far less functionality than every other mp3 player on the market at the time."
The Creative NOMAD Jukebox, the hard drive based MP3 player of the time, weighed nearly a pound with it's 2.5" 6GB notebook drive, ran for an astounding 4 hours on it's NiCad battery [sarcasm], and retailed for $500.
The original iPod had a 1.8" 5GB drive, scroll wheel, ran for 10 hours on it's LiPo battery, weighed 6.5 oz, and cost $399.
So I guess it depends on what you mean by "functionality". Are we talking about a checklist of half-implemented features, or about a device people could easily learn, easily carry, and easily use for hours on end?
That kind of "functionality"?
"Apple taking away choice..."
You say "choice" like it's the end all and be all of design. It's not. Choice brings with it complexity, and that's against Apple's DNA. Choice brings controls, and options, and configuration screens, and it also brings confusion and doubt.
The very fact that you're here on /. means, in all likelihood, you're a geek of some sort and geeks thrive on complexity. But many people do not. Many people, in fact, don't have a love affair with technology. They simply want to get whatever it is that they're doing DONE so they can get on with life.
Apple's design ethic is simplicity and minimalism. Again, some people want knobs and controls and widgets and options and clutter. And again, others don't. Some people care about features and checklists. Some care about design.
There's a market for both.
Why are you arguing? Some people choose iOS. Others Android. But it's odd. The people whose mantra is "choice" always seem outraged when that choice is Apple.
Lot's of people have ideas, but don't have the time or inclination to make them products.
And some people are simply too lazy to do so...