Ok. You don't seem to get it. Apple is the largest flash memory consumer in the "WORLD" which means that they can negotiate the lowest price possible which means that they can offer their flash memory based products at a much lower price and still maintain a healthy margin. This buying power also extends to their manufacturing capacity at Foxconn and purchase of other components such as the CPU and cellular radio. Their competitors do not have the same volume purchasing power so it is an uphill battle for them.
Shouldn't the fact that Samsung is selling their device through a carrier with subsidization be a big clue stick for you? They cannot offer their devices without a contract at a price that is competitive with the iPad 3G and the Wifi model is even cheaper.
The Samsung tablet lacks the established ecosystem of accessories and apps that the iPad has so Samsung would have to offer their device at loss of several hundred dollars to appeal to anyone other than a blind android fanboy. HTC and other makers have the same problem. They either have to sell their devices at a loss, lock it to a carrier contract or sacrifice performance/features.
Maybe you should stop drinking the Android koolaid for a while.
Funny that you should mention history of electronics because my point of economies of scale regarding flash memory has been repeated time and time again by the winners in that industry.
I can take my 3G iPad, go to Europe or Japan, pop out my carrier's micro sim and have it work with a new SIM without any hacking or adjustments and I can stop/start my data subscription on my home carrier at any point in time without penalty. You cannot do the same thing with a device locked to a carrier contract with SIM lock.
What makes you think Apple is interested in your privacy? Apple is interested in money,
Indeed. For example, Apple likes to require credit card info for iTunes store membership, even before you agree to buy something from them.
You can sign up for an iTunes account by choosing the "no payment method" option. If you decide to buy something, you can buy an iTunes card at a convenience store, use paypal or use a prepaid credit card. You don't need to use your own address with a prepaid card, just a valid one.
So you think that the iPad is overpriced but you think that Android tablets will bring the price down? Are you talking about subsidized or unsubsidized prices? The 3G iPad is not subsidized or locked and analysts were expecting that the starting price was going to be around a thousand dollars. The Samsung tab with carrier subsidization costs around the same price as a an iPad without it so I would expect that the unsubsidized price is over a thousand dollars.
Maybe you can get back to us when you decide to join us in reality.
Who says wifi is stationary? I think you're missing the point, but so is Apple.
If you're on stationary wifi, then yes, why do you need location services? But if you're on mobile wifi (tethering, MiFi, etc.), you might want to use it as a GPS or the like. Now, if it supported bluetooth GPS pucks (or nowadays, smartphones that will act as bluetooth GPS pucks) then there shouldn't be as much an issue.
The location by Wifi does not just go just by the name of your wifi base station you are connected to but also surrounding stations.
As others have pointed out countless times, dividends are paid out by companies which are no longer in a growth stage in an attempt to make their stock appear more attractive to investors. It is foolish to buy stocks that pay dividends at in a down market and wise to buy into growth stock. Paying a dividend shows that the company does not have any plans to grow through acquisitions or taking risks on new market segments.
Therefore they don't have "investors", they only have speculators.
The only way you can make money from Apple shares is by selling Apple shares. If you don't get the significance of that, let me put it another way: you always need new suckers to buy in to the scheme at higher prices.
If that sounds like a good long term "investment", then would you be interested in buying in to an exciting ground floor opportunity to market quality steak knives to other steak knife marketers?
So you would suggest buying MSFT stocks which do pay dividends of 13 CENTS per share each quarter but have DECLINED in value from 31 dollars to 25 dollars looking at Year to date versus buying AAPL at a low of 192.06 on January 29th to a current high of 301.60? Looking at those numbers, MSFT is a "BAD" investment and if you held onto MSFT stocks when they started to decline because of dividends then you are an idiot.
Companies that continue to pay dividends have stocks that are either relatively flat or declining in price due to a perceived drop in future growth or an eventual decline.
1. Of course it is not a 100% refund but you will get some of the money that you invested in hardware back in tax reductions.
2. Time is money. You have to weigh the TCO (total cost of ownership) and not just the initial ticket price. The more time you spend "fixing" your computer, the less time you have to actually drive foot traffic to your business.
3. If you want to learn videography, software and computer hardware is only part of the problem. You also have cameras and camera supplies. If your budget is tight and you want to learn, it might be more cost effective to find a nearby community college or try volunteering at a local TV station.
I' love to "get back to the mac" but I cant. You wont make a mac pro that is affordable in any way so I had to abandon the Mac platform and go back to the PC platform like many MANY businesses have.
I would love to stick with Final Cut and the mac platform... but I am able to buy 2X the machine for 1/2 the money AND have enough left over to buy new video camera gear. for the price of ONE Mac Pro quad core that can do AVCHD editing smoothly.
I loved editing on the mac platform, but they made the mac pro platform way too expensive.
Dear, Lumpy.
If you are indeed a professional and you were able to afford Final Cut and a mac in the first place, you should be aware that you can "write off" hardware and software upgrade costs as a "BUSINESS EXPENSE". If you don't actually have a business then I have to ask you, WTF were you using Final Cut for in the first place?
A mature adult should be able to tolerate some inappropriate language.
"Of course, of course," said Dr. Hardrum, "but my dear lady, what about the children?"
It is up to the parents of the child to raise that child, not other corporations, the FCC or any other government agency unless if they are wards of the state.
This has nothing to do with the FCC. I think this is a terrible idea too, but this is not the FCC doing anything. This is bad because it opens the door for all sorts of abuses, not because the abuses have happened yet.
It is the same thing. Both stem from societal pressures from immature adults who cannot deal with people using certain words.
A mature adult should be able to tolerate some inappropriate language.
How about American adults grow the frak up already so you can get rid of those moronic fascist censors at the FCC? Violence is supposedly OK but boobs and swear words are not? What the hell is wrong with you people?
Parents need to grow up and do their job of deciding what is appropriate for their children to watch and what is not. Stop relying on a nanny state to do your job.
Why? Because Google is being cheap and trying to get something for nothing. They could have licensed JavaME but then they would have to charge a licensing fee per handset for Android and that would eliminate an advantage they have over WinMo.
You are a bloody moron. Harper did not invent the CBC. It is run by out of touch bureaucrats. If you want to be pissed off any anybody, send your torches and pitch forks at those talent agencies.
So, where's the part where you explain why it's not going to happen? AT&T had branding all over their phones before the iPhone came around, so what makes you think Verizon would be unwilling to make the same concession? As far as hardware is concerned, if they go with a combined CDMA/GSM chip, it's likely that the cost to buy the chips from the supplier will be nearly the same, or negligibly higher (~$1-2). For that price, they get access to close to half of the US cell phone market that they didn't have previously. Seems like a good deal to me. If history is any indicator, most of Apple's partners eventually concede to Apple's way of doing business (see: everything in the iTunes store).
The requirements for such a chip would have to at least support the status quo support for GSM and HSPA which would be UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz) frequency bands and GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz) for GSM. Very few GSM phones other than the iPhone support that many regions let alone so called "WORLD" phones. I have heard horror stories from business people with a so-called "WORLD" RIM handset not working when they arrived in Japan or some part of Europe because it only supported a few frequencies compared with a GSM version.
Ever notice that beyond the bold carrier emblems on the phones themselves that virtually all smartphones sold on Verizon are advertised by Verizon instead of the handset makers themselves? Contrast that with the iPhone which might be sold exclusively in the US on AT&T but it is marketed by Apple directly and there are no AT&T (or other carriers for that matter) logos anywhere to be found on the phone or in the manuals.
I see your point, and I agree with it, but if you look in the upper-left corner of an iPhone by the signal-strength meter (please, enough with the idiot "how many bars?" crap), you'll see the magic letters "AT&T."
When I go down to the US with my Canadian (FIDO) phone, I get AT&T displayed in the corner or Cingular depending on whether I'm in the continental US states or Hawaii. When I was in Japan, it displayed NTT Docomo and various carriers as I traveled throughout Europe.
The carrier string will display whatever network you happen to be on at the moment.
Multiplexing in only a small part of the a wireless standard. There are many components including the core network which is shared by Edge, 3G and LTE. HSPA is the 3G standard used by GSM carriers. FULL STOP. LTE is the evolution of HSPA (UMTS).
Nobody except pedantic misinformed nerds on the net talk about TDMA in relation to GSM in an attempt to confuse the issue.
What matters is that EVDO, which is used by CDMA2000 in North America is incompatible with LTE while HSPA is an upgrade path to LTE. You cannot upgrade an EVDO network directly to LTE.
Yes it is. It was developed as the third generation upgrade to Edge (2G GSM) and it shares the same core network (think routers) as Edge so the same core can be used by both Edge and 3G towers.
GPRS, Edge and HSPA were developed by the same committee for use by the GSM association members.
There is no such thing as 4G GSM. 4G is LTE, which is OFDMA (and based on CDMA). GSM is ancient 2G TDMA. Verizon will be CDMA (3G) and LTE (4G). Although it will use a SIM card, it will most definitely not use GSM.
Hey Verizon drone/employee, stop with the FUD. HSPA is marketed as as 3G GSM in many markets. It uses W-CDMA for an air interface but the core network can be shared with established 2G (EDGE). W-CDMA is not directly based on CDMA2000 (used by Sprint/Verizon) but only shares a similar air interface strategy.
3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE), is the latest standard in the mobile network technology tree that previously realized the GSM/EDGE and UMTS/HSxPA network technologies.
Much of the standard addresses upgrading 3G UMTS to 4G mobile communications technology, which is essentially a mobile broadband system with enhanced multimedia services built on top.
LTE is the evolution of the UMTS standard (aka 3G GSM aka HSPA aka FOMA). The 4G upgrade path for CDMA died on the operating table which forced carriers like Verizon to switch to upgrading to LTE instead.
But we actually have fracturing not unification happening in the US.
T-mobile and AT&T used to have compatible networks, now though, to get 3G on T-mobile it needs to be a T-mobile phone.
To get unified head to head competition, you, the consumer needs to complain loudly to the FCC to do whatever they need to do to get everyone access to the same frequency bands on GSM/HSPA. WIthout consumer/citizen pressure, it will never happen.
Canada used to be fractured between GSM and CDMA as well but enough pressure was brought to bear that the CDMA carrier ended up rolling out HSPA+ to compete directly with the established GSM/HSPA carriers and now people in Canada can choose Rogers, Fido (city focused brand of Rogers), Bell, Telus or Virgin (city focused brand of Bell) as a carrier and buy either a subsidized (locked) iPhone from one of those carriers or an unsubsidized unlocked model from Apple stored directly.
Ever notice that beyond the bold carrier emblems on the phones themselves that virtually all smartphones sold on Verizon are advertised by Verizon instead of the handset makers themselves? Contrast that with the iPhone which might be sold exclusively in the US on AT&T but it is marketed by Apple directly and there are no AT&T (or other carriers for that matter) logos anywhere to be found on the phone or in the manuals.
Those other handset makers have allowed themselves to be relegated OEMs for the carriers while Apple markets directly to the consumer and only used the carriers as subsidized sales channels. This means that Apple manufactures one model (save for the Chinese no-Wifi model) for use worldwide and only enters IMEIs into their database to as sim LOCKED for any carrier that requests it. Except for different manuals and charger models, the iPhone you buy in the US/Canada or the UK only differ in what is included in the box and the phone itself is the same production run.
Even assuming that Verizon agreed to no branding on the phone either physically or in software/logo form, Apple would have to either create a special run for Verizon (CDMA) or raise the costs for every iPhone manufactured by switching to a CDMA/GSM model for no added benefit for people living outside of the US.
If you look at the timeline on that site, RISC O/S came out much later than a bunch of other GUIs so I really don't see your point. NeXTStep popularize a number of concepts which later made it into windows and MSFT development tools. Interface builder was ahead of it's time.
Interesting. I suppose you have not noticed that Steam uses OpenGL,
I'll let someone else defend that, since my experience with Steam (generally, that it's a steaming pile of crap) is not typical and isn't even representative of a sample of people that I know.
that Left For Dead 2 just launched on Steam
It's a game essentially written to run on the XBox 360. A game written to run on hardware over five years old is not a great argument for the state of the art. That's multiple generations ago in terms of computer hardware.
and that all of those iOS games on iPhones and iPads all use OpenGL ES?
Along the same lines, a phone and its stripped-down processing power (relative to a laptop, desktop, etc.) isn't a great argument for the state of the art.
It is useless to talk to you since you don't even seem to understand the difference between "DESKTOP" platforms and mobile platforms. A laptop is a mobile "DESKTOP" while a tablet running "ARM" processors is a mobile platform. Each platform type has different form factors and different performance scales. Per watt, the ARM based products like the iPhone and iPad offer more performance than your typical gaming rig which is why Epic games has been able to demo their Unreal Engine 3 at 1024X768 at fast frames per second on an iPad.
Well, to be fair... Microsoft demo'd a lot of features in Longhorn back in 2002 that apple copied and was able to get to market with faster (due to Micorosoft's major screwups in developing Longhorn). Microsoft showed stuff like 3D Window managers with wobbly windows, instant search, etc.. long before they were in other products like Compiz/XGL or OSX.
I think you have your history a little screwed up. Apple released hardware accelerated version of their compositing rendering engine Quartz back in August 23, 2002 (10.2 Jaguar). Previous to that, they had software based Quartz in 10.0 and 10.1 and Quartz evolved out of Display Postscript on NextStep. Apple and Next had been working on search for a long time before that as well.
The taskbar in Windows 95 and quick launch was stolen from the NextStep dock.
Oh, I'm going to karma hell, but it's true. OpenGL fell behind a long time ago and now its remedial class is trying to catch up by going slower than the normal kids.
Interesting. I suppose you have not noticed that Steam uses OpenGL, that Left For Dead 2 just launched on Steam and that all of those iOS games on iPhones and iPads all use OpenGL ES?
Slashdot Mirror
Ok. You don't seem to get it. Apple is the largest flash memory consumer in the "WORLD" which means that they can negotiate the lowest price possible which means that they can offer their flash memory based products at a much lower price and still maintain a healthy margin. This buying power also extends to their manufacturing capacity at Foxconn and purchase of other components such as the CPU and cellular radio. Their competitors do not have the same volume purchasing power so it is an uphill battle for them.
Shouldn't the fact that Samsung is selling their device through a carrier with subsidization be a big clue stick for you? They cannot offer their devices without a contract at a price that is competitive with the iPad 3G and the Wifi model is even cheaper.
The Samsung tablet lacks the established ecosystem of accessories and apps that the iPad has so Samsung would have to offer their device at loss of several hundred dollars to appeal to anyone other than a blind android fanboy. HTC and other makers have the same problem. They either have to sell their devices at a loss, lock it to a carrier contract or sacrifice performance/features.
Maybe you should stop drinking the Android koolaid for a while.
Funny that you should mention history of electronics because my point of economies of scale regarding flash memory has been repeated time and time again by the winners in that industry.
I can take my 3G iPad, go to Europe or Japan, pop out my carrier's micro sim and have it work with a new SIM without any hacking or adjustments and I can stop/start my data subscription on my home carrier at any point in time without penalty. You cannot do the same thing with a device locked to a carrier contract with SIM lock.
Indeed. For example, Apple likes to require credit card info for iTunes store membership, even before you agree to buy something from them.
You can sign up for an iTunes account by choosing the "no payment method" option. If you decide to buy something, you can buy an iTunes card at a convenience store, use paypal or use a prepaid credit card. You don't need to use your own address with a prepaid card, just a valid one.
So you think that the iPad is overpriced but you think that Android tablets will bring the price down? Are you talking about subsidized or unsubsidized prices? The 3G iPad is not subsidized or locked and analysts were expecting that the starting price was going to be around a thousand dollars. The Samsung tab with carrier subsidization costs around the same price as a an iPad without it so I would expect that the unsubsidized price is over a thousand dollars.
Maybe you can get back to us when you decide to join us in reality.
Who says wifi is stationary? I think you're missing the point, but so is Apple.
If you're on stationary wifi, then yes, why do you need location services? But if you're on mobile wifi (tethering, MiFi, etc.), you might want to use it as a GPS or the like. Now, if it supported bluetooth GPS pucks (or nowadays, smartphones that will act as bluetooth GPS pucks) then there shouldn't be as much an issue.
The location by Wifi does not just go just by the name of your wifi base station you are connected to but also surrounding stations.
As others have pointed out countless times, dividends are paid out by companies which are no longer in a growth stage in an attempt to make their stock appear more attractive to investors. It is foolish to buy stocks that pay dividends at in a down market and wise to buy into growth stock. Paying a dividend shows that the company does not have any plans to grow through acquisitions or taking risks on new market segments.
Therefore they don't have "investors", they only have speculators.
The only way you can make money from Apple shares is by selling Apple shares. If you don't get the significance of that, let me put it another way: you always need new suckers to buy in to the scheme at higher prices.
If that sounds like a good long term "investment", then would you be interested in buying in to an exciting ground floor opportunity to market quality steak knives to other steak knife marketers?
So you would suggest buying MSFT stocks which do pay dividends of 13 CENTS per share each quarter but have DECLINED in value from 31 dollars to 25 dollars looking at Year to date versus buying AAPL at a low of 192.06 on January 29th to a current high of 301.60? Looking at those numbers, MSFT is a "BAD" investment and if you held onto MSFT stocks when they started to decline because of dividends then you are an idiot.
Companies that continue to pay dividends have stocks that are either relatively flat or declining in price due to a perceived drop in future growth or an eventual decline.
1. Of course it is not a 100% refund but you will get some of the money that you invested in hardware back in tax reductions.
2. Time is money. You have to weigh the TCO (total cost of ownership) and not just the initial ticket price. The more time you spend "fixing" your computer, the less time you have to actually drive foot traffic to your business.
3. If you want to learn videography, software and computer hardware is only part of the problem. You also have cameras and camera supplies. If your budget is tight and you want to learn, it might be more cost effective to find a nearby community college or try volunteering at a local TV station.
I' love to "get back to the mac" but I cant. You wont make a mac pro that is affordable in any way so I had to abandon the Mac platform and go back to the PC platform like many MANY businesses have.
I would love to stick with Final Cut and the mac platform... but I am able to buy 2X the machine for 1/2 the money AND have enough left over to buy new video camera gear. for the price of ONE Mac Pro quad core that can do AVCHD editing smoothly.
I loved editing on the mac platform, but they made the mac pro platform way too expensive.
Dear, Lumpy.
If you are indeed a professional and you were able to afford Final Cut and a mac in the first place, you should be aware that you can "write off" hardware and software upgrade costs as a "BUSINESS EXPENSE". If you don't actually have a business then I have to ask you, WTF were you using Final Cut for in the first place?
A mature adult should be able to tolerate some inappropriate language.
"Of course, of course," said Dr. Hardrum, "but my dear lady, what about the children?"
It is up to the parents of the child to raise that child, not other corporations, the FCC or any other government agency unless if they are wards of the state.
This has nothing to do with the FCC. I think this is a terrible idea too, but this is not the FCC doing anything. This is bad because it opens the door for all sorts of abuses, not because the abuses have happened yet.
It is the same thing. Both stem from societal pressures from immature adults who cannot deal with people using certain words.
A mature adult should be able to tolerate some inappropriate language.
How about American adults grow the frak up already so you can get rid of those moronic fascist censors at the FCC? Violence is supposedly OK but boobs and swear words are not? What the hell is wrong with you people?
Parents need to grow up and do their job of deciding what is appropriate for their children to watch and what is not. Stop relying on a nanny state to do your job.
Why? Because Google is being cheap and trying to get something for nothing. They could have licensed JavaME but then they would have to charge a licensing fee per handset for Android and that would eliminate an advantage they have over WinMo.
Electoral death to Harper!
You are a bloody moron. Harper did not invent the CBC. It is run by out of touch bureaucrats. If you want to be pissed off any anybody, send your torches and pitch forks at those talent agencies.
So, where's the part where you explain why it's not going to happen? AT&T had branding all over their phones before the iPhone came around, so what makes you think Verizon would be unwilling to make the same concession? As far as hardware is concerned, if they go with a combined CDMA/GSM chip, it's likely that the cost to buy the chips from the supplier will be nearly the same, or negligibly higher (~$1-2). For that price, they get access to close to half of the US cell phone market that they didn't have previously. Seems like a good deal to me. If history is any indicator, most of Apple's partners eventually concede to Apple's way of doing business (see: everything in the iTunes store).
The requirements for such a chip would have to at least support the status quo support for GSM and HSPA which would be UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz) frequency bands and GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz) for GSM. Very few GSM phones other than the iPhone support that many regions let alone so called "WORLD" phones. I have heard horror stories from business people with a so-called "WORLD" RIM handset not working when they arrived in Japan or some part of Europe because it only supported a few frequencies compared with a GSM version.
Ever notice that beyond the bold carrier emblems on the phones themselves that virtually all smartphones sold on Verizon are advertised by Verizon instead of the handset makers themselves? Contrast that with the iPhone which might be sold exclusively in the US on AT&T but it is marketed by Apple directly and there are no AT&T (or other carriers for that matter) logos anywhere to be found on the phone or in the manuals.
I see your point, and I agree with it, but if you look in the upper-left corner of an iPhone by the signal-strength meter (please, enough with the idiot "how many bars?" crap), you'll see the magic letters "AT&T."
When I go down to the US with my Canadian (FIDO) phone, I get AT&T displayed in the corner or Cingular depending on whether I'm in the continental US states or Hawaii. When I was in Japan, it displayed NTT Docomo and various carriers as I traveled throughout Europe.
The carrier string will display whatever network you happen to be on at the moment.
Multiplexing in only a small part of the a wireless standard. There are many components including the core network which is shared by Edge, 3G and LTE. HSPA is the 3G standard used by GSM carriers. FULL STOP. LTE is the evolution of HSPA (UMTS).
Nobody except pedantic misinformed nerds on the net talk about TDMA in relation to GSM in an attempt to confuse the issue.
What matters is that EVDO, which is used by CDMA2000 in North America is incompatible with LTE while HSPA is an upgrade path to LTE. You cannot upgrade an EVDO network directly to LTE.
HSPA is marketed as as 3G GSM
Marketed as, but isn't.
Yes it is. It was developed as the third generation upgrade to Edge (2G GSM) and it shares the same core network (think routers) as Edge so the same core can be used by both Edge and 3G towers.
GPRS, Edge and HSPA were developed by the same committee for use by the GSM association members.
There is no such thing as 4G GSM. 4G is LTE, which is OFDMA (and based on CDMA). GSM is ancient 2G TDMA. Verizon will be CDMA (3G) and LTE (4G). Although it will use a SIM card, it will most definitely not use GSM.
Hey Verizon drone/employee, stop with the FUD. HSPA is marketed as as 3G GSM in many markets. It uses W-CDMA for an air interface but the core network can be shared with established 2G (EDGE). W-CDMA is not directly based on CDMA2000 (used by Sprint/Verizon) but only shares a similar air interface strategy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3GPP_Long_Term_Evolution
LTE is the evolution of the UMTS standard (aka 3G GSM aka HSPA aka FOMA). The 4G upgrade path for CDMA died on the operating table which forced carriers like Verizon to switch to upgrading to LTE instead.
But we actually have fracturing not unification happening in the US.
T-mobile and AT&T used to have compatible networks, now though, to get 3G on T-mobile it needs to be a T-mobile phone.
To get unified head to head competition, you, the consumer needs to complain loudly to the FCC to do whatever they need to do to get everyone access to the same frequency bands on GSM/HSPA. WIthout consumer/citizen pressure, it will never happen.
Canada used to be fractured between GSM and CDMA as well but enough pressure was brought to bear that the CDMA carrier ended up rolling out HSPA+ to compete directly with the established GSM/HSPA carriers and now people in Canada can choose Rogers, Fido (city focused brand of Rogers), Bell, Telus or Virgin (city focused brand of Bell) as a carrier and buy either a subsidized (locked) iPhone from one of those carriers or an unsubsidized unlocked model from Apple stored directly.
Ever notice that beyond the bold carrier emblems on the phones themselves that virtually all smartphones sold on Verizon are advertised by Verizon instead of the handset makers themselves? Contrast that with the iPhone which might be sold exclusively in the US on AT&T but it is marketed by Apple directly and there are no AT&T (or other carriers for that matter) logos anywhere to be found on the phone or in the manuals.
Those other handset makers have allowed themselves to be relegated OEMs for the carriers while Apple markets directly to the consumer and only used the carriers as subsidized sales channels. This means that Apple manufactures one model (save for the Chinese no-Wifi model) for use worldwide and only enters IMEIs into their database to as sim LOCKED for any carrier that requests it. Except for different manuals and charger models, the iPhone you buy in the US/Canada or the UK only differ in what is included in the box and the phone itself is the same production run.
Even assuming that Verizon agreed to no branding on the phone either physically or in software/logo form, Apple would have to either create a special run for Verizon (CDMA) or raise the costs for every iPhone manufactured by switching to a CDMA/GSM model for no added benefit for people living outside of the US.
The taskbar in Windows 95 and quick launch was stolen from the NextStep dock.
The NextStep dock was stolen from the Risc O/S.
If you look at the timeline on that site, RISC O/S came out much later than a bunch of other GUIs so I really don't see your point. NeXTStep popularize a number of concepts which later made it into windows and MSFT development tools. Interface builder was ahead of it's time.
Interesting. I suppose you have not noticed that Steam uses OpenGL,
I'll let someone else defend that, since my experience with Steam (generally, that it's a steaming pile of crap) is not typical and isn't even representative of a sample of people that I know.
that Left For Dead 2 just launched on Steam
It's a game essentially written to run on the XBox 360. A game written to run on hardware over five years old is not a great argument for the state of the art. That's multiple generations ago in terms of computer hardware.
and that all of those iOS games on iPhones and iPads all use OpenGL ES?
Along the same lines, a phone and its stripped-down processing power (relative to a laptop, desktop, etc.) isn't a great argument for the state of the art.
It is useless to talk to you since you don't even seem to understand the difference between "DESKTOP" platforms and mobile platforms. A laptop is a mobile "DESKTOP" while a tablet running "ARM" processors is a mobile platform. Each platform type has different form factors and different performance scales. Per watt, the ARM based products like the iPhone and iPad offer more performance than your typical gaming rig which is why Epic games has been able to demo their Unreal Engine 3 at 1024X768 at fast frames per second on an iPad.
http://www.epicgames.com/technology/epic-citadel
Once you understand what you are talking about instead of spouting MSFT talking points then you can get back to us.
Well, to be fair... Microsoft demo'd a lot of features in Longhorn back in 2002 that apple copied and was able to get to market with faster (due to Micorosoft's major screwups in developing Longhorn). Microsoft showed stuff like 3D Window managers with wobbly windows, instant search, etc.. long before they were in other products like Compiz/XGL or OSX.
I think you have your history a little screwed up. Apple released hardware accelerated version of their compositing rendering engine Quartz back in August 23, 2002 (10.2 Jaguar). Previous to that, they had software based Quartz in 10.0 and 10.1 and Quartz evolved out of Display Postscript on NextStep. Apple and Next had been working on search for a long time before that as well.
The taskbar in Windows 95 and quick launch was stolen from the NextStep dock.
You mean OpenGL?
No, I think he wanted something good.
Oh, I'm going to karma hell, but it's true. OpenGL fell behind a long time ago and now its remedial class is trying to catch up by going slower than the normal kids.
Interesting. I suppose you have not noticed that Steam uses OpenGL, that Left For Dead 2 just launched on Steam and that all of those iOS games on iPhones and iPads all use OpenGL ES?