It charges mobile devices with a built in high-cap battery... just like the things you can buy on Amazon that charge your mobile device with a built in high-cap battery... for $20.
The iPhone does come with a Lightning cable, so $0.
Unless you want a spare.
Yes, the entire point of the project was to create a device where you didn't need a dongle... in a saturated market that is already flooded with portable charing devices. It also promised to supply a connector that Apple did not even officially acknowledge the existence of until later, without checking what the licensing terms would be (which was impossible because the connector did not exist officially yet).
I'm not seeing how this is Apple's fault - it's not as if their usual behaviour is uncommon here. The licensing around the original 30 pin was equally obtuse.
They gambled that it would be smooth sailing with the as-then-unannounced connector and pushed ahead with product development without having all of their ducks in a row.
You haters ought to get together and discuss what FUD you're going to spread. I pays to be consistent.
Stop playing semantic games and just admit that there are no real alternative browsers, only wrappers around Apple's version of webkit, or some Frankensteinian monstrosity that offloads processing to the server.. Anyway, I joined this conversation to make a point and now must leave it point made, whether or not the recipient of my words understood them.
Haha. So arguments that you disagree with are "semantic games".
Ok, kid.
Now we're talking about no "real" alternatives, whereas before it was "there are NO alternatives".
*aims for the goal*
*goalposts move*
*oops!*
Intellectual dishonesty at its finest; move the goalposts after the fact and then declare my argument invalid based on the new criteria. You can do better.
Hey want to buy this new charger that only works with old iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches but none of the current generation..... Yea what is the problem with this?
The design had USB ports on it from the start that work with any device that doesn't have the ports it includes.
No problem with this... apparently, yet still cancelled.
Maybe they realised that they can't compete with things on Amazon that do exactly the same thing for $20.
This is not necessarily the end of the Edison Junior’s portable power project. Siminoff told me that the team will be re-focusing on a device that supports Android phones and tablets and Apple products as well, if backers wish to use a Lightning-to-USB connector, or an older 30-pin connector. They’ll only build that device, however, if the crowdfunding community wants it.
They want to do that, but they'd be building a different project than what people pledged for. So for obvious reasons they would need to start over.
But they already are - the Lightning connector was not official when the project began, so how could they offer it?
If they started the project based on rumours of the new connector, or with a plan to include it *without* discussing terms with Apple first, then that was just silly.
It already *does* have USB ports on it. That's what's so hilarious about this.
The project owner basically just had a hissy fit.
Also, what non-user-servicable batteries? Other than the new iPod nano and the iPad, you can replace all of the batteries in Apple products. Sure there's no battery door, but it's as easy as popping the back off with a screwdriver and swapping out the battery. I've done it in about 10 minutes on a couple of iPhones, a MBP, etc.
I had presumed that Apple wanted to have tight control over the lightening connector - that is to say, they wanted to maximize their profit - but geesh!
Way to act like Veruca Salt!
In what way? Their terms for licensing the "lightening [sic] connector" are well known, and this project started before the iPhone 5 was even released. Somehow it has become a deal breaker for the project, despite the connector not being officially announced when the project began.
Now the project owner has thrown his toys out of the pram because apparently the built in USB ports on the device will simply make it totally useless and non-viable because Apple denied them a licence for a connector that didn't exist at the start of the project.
Apple didn't "kill a kickstarter project" - the originator of the kickstarter project killed a kickstarter project.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't there going to be some sort of legislature dictating that cell phone makers use a universal charging standard by this point? Everyone else has managed micro usb, why is it so hard for apple?
It's not hard for Apple. They have a micro-USB adapter to comply with that requirement. The law doesn't require that the device have a micro-USB connector, just that you are able to connect it to one via some means.
Ah yes, the kickstarter project that began before the official release of the connector, that also features powered USB ports for charging "other devices with incompatible ports" and yet somehow the inability to roll in the Lightning port to a product that was begun before Apple even acknowledged it exists is "doomed".
I wonder, what's to stop iPhone 5 users from plugging in a Lightning cable into one of the powered USB ports on this device? Nothing? So why the need to cancel it?
No actually, Chrome on iOS uses a slower (and less powerful) version of the webkit engine than Safari does. More specifically, Chrome on iOS is blocked from using the Nitro javascript engine that Safari has access to, and is not allowed to use it's own javascript JIT compiler, due to Apple's guidelines. So no, Chrome on iOS is a shadow of it's form on other platforms. This basically means that Safari remains by design, and not by chance, the best and most performant browser on iOS.
So, what you;re saying is that it's a different browser? Thus fulfilling the OP's request for, quote:
When I can download another browser I'll agree with you.
I'm not seeing how there can simultaneously be no competition between browsers on iOS because "they're all the same" but also be... different.
Also, the speed difference between the JS engines was down to the way the security model and sandboxing was set up - the newer, faster engine (ie, the same one Safari uses) was put into the public API at a later time. The speed parity did not last long. The same issue affected web apps that you could add to your homescreen (from within Safari). When they were launched from the home screen they used the older engine and were slower.
So, again. The OP asked for a different browser. I provided an example. I was then told that example didn't count because it used the Webkit API. Now you're telling me it *is* actually different, but that it still doesn't count as a different browser because it might be slower than Safari?
You haters ought to get together and discuss what FUD you're going to spread. I pays to be consistent.
Surely you realize that's just a wrapper around an iOS service? You are either disingenuously misinterpreting the GP to discredit their criticism, or really have no clue about the state of competing browsers on iOS (ie, there are none, only wrappers and bookmark/history syncing).
It's an app built on the WebKit engine provided on iOS, yes, but that's not what the OP said.
He said:
When I can download another browser I'll agree with you.
So, would you agree that Safari and Chrome are two different browsers, even if they both use the same WebKit API?
Alternatively there are other browsers on iOS that offload the rendering to a remote server and don't use WebKit, but I figured "Chrome vs Safari" was an easy enough distinction to make given that the criterion was "a different browser [to Safari]".
I have to wonder how you can say there are "no competing" browsers on iOS, just because most of the browsers on iOS share the common rendering engine.
I guess Samsung's Android phones are not competing with HTC's Android phones. I mean, they share a common OS, right? They're the same thing!
Apple just wants to make and sell hardware as well made as they can
This falls apart when you consider that Apple doesn't let you run your own OS on their hardware. They make it as hard as possible to run Windows on a Mac, they've been caught trying to prevent Linux from overtaking the bootloader. You cant run anything except IOS on an Ipod, Ipad or Iphone desipte it being the exact same hardware that runs Android and Windows Phone8/RT.
No, Apple wants you locked into their ecosystem. Why?
Because they make more money from you that way.
there are too many other high quality mapping solutions already (including Apple's own maps).
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha,
Don't give up your day job. When Apple cant even put train stations on train lines, you cant call it quality.
I see you've never used a Mac before, but don't worry - you're not the only one spouting such hilariously cute ignorance.
Installing Windows on a Mac features these "extremely difficult" steps:
1. Buy Windows (DVD or iso direct from Microsoft)
2. Run Bootcamp Assistant
* this partitions your HD (even your boot drive, changing the partition size as needed) to the sizes you choose. * it also downloads all the drivers you need for Mac hardware. * it then makes a bootable USB windows installer disk and includes all those drivers and software tools (you can choose to make a bootable DVD if you like)
3. Reboot Mac with this USB stick connected.
4. Install Windows
5. Run software package on USB to install all the drivers.
If you think that is "making it as hard as possible", then I am wondering if you have velcro shoes, because laces must be a total mystery to you.
Have I rationally rebutted your argument enough to call you a hater yet?
They may be limiting the number of fart apps, a great loss to the market I'm sure.
When I can download another browser I'll agree with you. Until then this post screams of closing your eyes, sticking fingers in your ears and going "lalala"
There's a small software and search company called "Google" that has an alternative browser on the App Store. It's called Chrome. Maybe you've heard of it?
I guess slashdot really does have to give up any possible credence to the claim that the moderation system minimises abuse.
Or, perhaps it speaks more to the insecurity of the Apple haters, that even sane, non-inflammatory, reasoned discourse is modded "troll" because you disagree with it? Who knows?
The fandroids will spin this into something to make it seem like it was a win for them all along.
Whoa, the fandroids didn't do that! Instead, the fandroids discussed the issues, risks and fixes calmly, intelligently and informatively. Now if only iFans were like that, maybe I wouldn't feel like I got something icky on me after any encounter.
Oh, iFans have another weapon besides naked fanaticism: they also have Apple spinmods.
And the Fandroids cling to the belief that slashdot is a pro-Apple site, where any moderation of their (actually flamebait and inflammatory) post is somehow down to "spinmods" looking to suppress the message.
If you write an inflammatory post that serves no real purpose other than to bash Apple fans in a story that has nothing to do with them what did you expect? The moderation functions exist outside the realm of highly polarised zealots of both platforms.
Matlab. If you planning to go into science (not CS, actual science) ability to code in Matlab will put you head above any of your peers.
I agree. I'm a chemist, and I barely skim the surface of what Matlab can do, but cftool and the general plotting features are second to none. Some of the stuff I see the physchem lot do with it is pretty damn good too.
If the question is "can we do it in Matlab?" the answer is almost invariably "yes".
Google, if I recall correctly, was sued by a woman when their maps told her to take a pedestrian route that didn't have sidewalks and she was hit by a car.
Ok. I just can't resist this anymore. Who, in the bloody hell, is so stupid that they follow their stupid GPS device around like a damn lemming - so the extent that they walk in the middle of the damn street and get their ass plastered by oncoming traffic? What a really top-notch example of natural selection - follow that up with the fact that she sued Google for her own stupidity, and I'm having real trouble feeling any sympathy.
Come on, people - GPS is a tool to help you get your general bearings in unknown territory; always has been, always will be. It won't ever be perfect and it doesn't have to be. Computers cannot (and should not) think for you.
Unfortunately, lots of people.
There are countless photos of signs people have put up along very-obviously-not proper roads with words like "turn around, trust us, your sat nav is wrong" halfway along single track bridleways, or at the edge of concrete banks that lead into a canal etc.
Slashdot Mirror
It charges mobile devices with a built in high-cap battery... just like the things you can buy on Amazon that charge your mobile device with a built in high-cap battery... for $20.
The iPhone does come with a Lightning cable, so $0.
Unless you want a spare.
Yes, the entire point of the project was to create a device where you didn't need a dongle... in a saturated market that is already flooded with portable charing devices. It also promised to supply a connector that Apple did not even officially acknowledge the existence of until later, without checking what the licensing terms would be (which was impossible because the connector did not exist officially yet).
I'm not seeing how this is Apple's fault - it's not as if their usual behaviour is uncommon here. The licensing around the original 30 pin was equally obtuse.
They gambled that it would be smooth sailing with the as-then-unannounced connector and pushed ahead with product development without having all of their ducks in a row.
You haters ought to get together and discuss what FUD you're going to spread. I pays to be consistent.
Stop playing semantic games and just admit that there are no real alternative browsers, only wrappers around Apple's version of webkit, or some Frankensteinian monstrosity that offloads processing to the server.. Anyway, I joined this conversation to make a point and now must leave it point made, whether or not the recipient of my words understood them.
Haha. So arguments that you disagree with are "semantic games".
Ok, kid.
Now we're talking about no "real" alternatives, whereas before it was "there are NO alternatives".
*aims for the goal*
*goalposts move*
*oops!*
Intellectual dishonesty at its finest; move the goalposts after the fact and then declare my argument invalid based on the new criteria. You can do better.
Hey want to buy this new charger that only works with old iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches but none of the current generation.....
Yea what is the problem with this?
The design had USB ports on it from the start that work with any device that doesn't have the ports it includes.
No problem with this... apparently, yet still cancelled.
Maybe they realised that they can't compete with things on Amazon that do exactly the same thing for $20.
RTFA.
They want to do that, but they'd be building a different project than what people pledged for. So for obvious reasons they would need to start over.
But they already are - the Lightning connector was not official when the project began, so how could they offer it?
If they started the project based on rumours of the new connector, or with a plan to include it *without* discussing terms with Apple first, then that was just silly.
What about the high-capacity battery? Did you figure that into your 6 dollars?
http://www.amazon.com/capacity-portable-External-Motorola-Blackberry/dp/B008S4QR2U/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&qid=1356098608&sr=8-13&keywords=high+capacity+battery
Add about $15 for the battery.
It already *does* have USB ports on it. That's what's so hilarious about this.
The project owner basically just had a hissy fit.
Also, what non-user-servicable batteries? Other than the new iPod nano and the iPad, you can replace all of the batteries in Apple products. Sure there's no battery door, but it's as easy as popping the back off with a screwdriver and swapping out the battery. I've done it in about 10 minutes on a couple of iPhones, a MBP, etc.
I had presumed that Apple wanted to have tight control over the lightening connector - that is to say, they wanted to maximize their profit - but geesh!
Way to act like Veruca Salt!
In what way? Their terms for licensing the "lightening [sic] connector" are well known, and this project started before the iPhone 5 was even released. Somehow it has become a deal breaker for the project, despite the connector not being officially announced when the project began.
Now the project owner has thrown his toys out of the pram because apparently the built in USB ports on the device will simply make it totally useless and non-viable because Apple denied them a licence for a connector that didn't exist at the start of the project.
Apple didn't "kill a kickstarter project" - the originator of the kickstarter project killed a kickstarter project.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't there going to be some sort of legislature dictating that cell phone makers use a universal charging standard by this point? Everyone else has managed micro usb, why is it so hard for apple?
It's not hard for Apple. They have a micro-USB adapter to comply with that requirement. The law doesn't require that the device have a micro-USB connector, just that you are able to connect it to one via some means.
Dear Apple
Fuck you!
Yours sincerely
The sane people on the planet
Ah yes, the kickstarter project that began before the official release of the connector, that also features powered USB ports for charging "other devices with incompatible ports" and yet somehow the inability to roll in the Lightning port to a product that was begun before Apple even acknowledged it exists is "doomed".
I wonder, what's to stop iPhone 5 users from plugging in a Lightning cable into one of the powered USB ports on this device? Nothing? So why the need to cancel it?
Very odd.
No actually, Chrome on iOS uses a slower (and less powerful) version of the webkit engine than Safari does. More specifically, Chrome on iOS is blocked from using the Nitro javascript engine that Safari has access to, and is not allowed to use it's own javascript JIT compiler, due to Apple's guidelines. So no, Chrome on iOS is a shadow of it's form on other platforms. This basically means that Safari remains by design, and not by chance, the best and most performant browser on iOS.
So, what you;re saying is that it's a different browser? Thus fulfilling the OP's request for, quote:
When I can download another browser I'll agree with you.
I'm not seeing how there can simultaneously be no competition between browsers on iOS because "they're all the same" but also be... different.
Also, the speed difference between the JS engines was down to the way the security model and sandboxing was set up - the newer, faster engine (ie, the same one Safari uses) was put into the public API at a later time. The speed parity did not last long. The same issue affected web apps that you could add to your homescreen (from within Safari). When they were launched from the home screen they used the older engine and were slower.
So, again. The OP asked for a different browser. I provided an example. I was then told that example didn't count because it used the Webkit API. Now you're telling me it *is* actually different, but that it still doesn't count as a different browser because it might be slower than Safari?
You haters ought to get together and discuss what FUD you're going to spread. I pays to be consistent.
Surely you realize that's just a wrapper around an iOS service? You are either disingenuously misinterpreting the GP to discredit their criticism, or really have no clue about the state of competing browsers on iOS (ie, there are none, only wrappers and bookmark/history syncing).
It's an app built on the WebKit engine provided on iOS, yes, but that's not what the OP said.
He said:
When I can download another browser I'll agree with you.
So, would you agree that Safari and Chrome are two different browsers, even if they both use the same WebKit API?
Alternatively there are other browsers on iOS that offload the rendering to a remote server and don't use WebKit, but I figured "Chrome vs Safari" was an easy enough distinction to make given that the criterion was "a different browser [to Safari]".
I have to wonder how you can say there are "no competing" browsers on iOS, just because most of the browsers on iOS share the common rendering engine.
I guess Samsung's Android phones are not competing with HTC's Android phones. I mean, they share a common OS, right? They're the same thing!
This falls apart when you consider that Apple doesn't let you run your own OS on their hardware. They make it as hard as possible to run Windows on a Mac, they've been caught trying to prevent Linux from overtaking the bootloader. You cant run anything except IOS on an Ipod, Ipad or Iphone desipte it being the exact same hardware that runs Android and Windows Phone8/RT.
No, Apple wants you locked into their ecosystem. Why?
Because they make more money from you that way.
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha,
Don't give up your day job. When Apple cant even put train stations on train lines, you cant call it quality.
I see you've never used a Mac before, but don't worry - you're not the only one spouting such hilariously cute ignorance.
Installing Windows on a Mac features these "extremely difficult" steps:
1. Buy Windows (DVD or iso direct from Microsoft)
2. Run Bootcamp Assistant
* this partitions your HD (even your boot drive, changing the partition size as needed) to the sizes you choose.
* it also downloads all the drivers you need for Mac hardware.
* it then makes a bootable USB windows installer disk and includes all those drivers and software tools (you can choose to make a bootable DVD if you like)
3. Reboot Mac with this USB stick connected.
4. Install Windows
5. Run software package on USB to install all the drivers.
If you think that is "making it as hard as possible", then I am wondering if you have velcro shoes, because laces must be a total mystery to you.
Have I rationally rebutted your argument enough to call you a hater yet?
They may be limiting the number of fart apps, a great loss to the market I'm sure.
When I can download another browser I'll agree with you. Until then this post screams of closing your eyes, sticking fingers in your ears and going "lalala"
There's a small software and search company called "Google" that has an alternative browser on the App Store. It's called Chrome. Maybe you've heard of it?
http://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/browser/mobile/ios.html
If you buy tinfoil... they'll know you buy tinfoil!
Then you'll get adverts for turkey and cookbooks for roasting large flightless avians!
It's too risky, man!
Can I bum some change?
Really?
I guess slashdot really does have to give up any possible credence to the claim that the moderation system minimises abuse.
Or, perhaps it speaks more to the insecurity of the Apple haters, that even sane, non-inflammatory, reasoned discourse is modded "troll" because you disagree with it? Who knows?
The fandroids will spin this into something to make it seem like it was a win for them all along.
Whoa, the fandroids didn't do that! Instead, the fandroids discussed the issues, risks and fixes calmly, intelligently and informatively. Now if only iFans were like that, maybe I wouldn't feel like I got something icky on me after any encounter.
Oh, iFans have another weapon besides naked fanaticism: they also have Apple spinmods.
And the Fandroids cling to the belief that slashdot is a pro-Apple site, where any moderation of their (actually flamebait and inflammatory) post is somehow down to "spinmods" looking to suppress the message.
If you write an inflammatory post that serves no real purpose other than to bash Apple fans in a story that has nothing to do with them what did you expect? The moderation functions exist outside the realm of highly polarised zealots of both platforms.
Comprehension fail.
Consider that the set of people who are parents and the set of people who responded in total are not be the same set...
Matlab. If you planning to go into science (not CS, actual science) ability to code in Matlab will put you head above any of your peers.
I agree. I'm a chemist, and I barely skim the surface of what Matlab can do, but cftool and the general plotting features are second to none. Some of the stuff I see the physchem lot do with it is pretty damn good too.
If the question is "can we do it in Matlab?" the answer is almost invariably "yes".
Not an idiot; you're just blinded by your fanboism.
But I'm still struggling. You'll have to help me out here. What money was stolen from consumers by Apple? I'm having a hard time working it out.
Google has no reports of thefts by Apple. It's perplexing!
If you'd just tell me what you mean, then all of this could be sorted out!
You're a fucking idiot if you can't figure it out for yourself.
I must be a fucking idiot then, since I'm still not seeing what money Apple have stolen from consumers?
What definition of "stolen" are we using here? Maybe that has something to do with it?
They should both be writing billions of hundred dollar checks to pay back all the money they have stolen from consumers.
I'm curious. What money have they stolen from consumers?
Came up first for me. YMMV.
Google have said an iPad version is also in the works.
Google, if I recall correctly, was sued by a woman when their maps told her to take a pedestrian route that didn't have sidewalks and she was hit by a car.
Ok. I just can't resist this anymore. Who, in the bloody hell, is so stupid that they follow their stupid GPS device around like a damn lemming - so the extent that they walk in the middle of the damn street and get their ass plastered by oncoming traffic? What a really top-notch example of natural selection - follow that up with the fact that she sued Google for her own stupidity, and I'm having real trouble feeling any sympathy.
Come on, people - GPS is a tool to help you get your general bearings in unknown territory; always has been, always will be. It won't ever be perfect and it doesn't have to be. Computers cannot (and should not) think for you.
Unfortunately, lots of people.
There are countless photos of signs people have put up along very-obviously-not proper roads with words like "turn around, trust us, your sat nav is wrong" halfway along single track bridleways, or at the edge of concrete banks that lead into a canal etc.