My point being, though, that nobody cares about the law. Not when it affects them negatively, is not wanted, and is trivially worked around with no chance of being caught. Word will get out that a slide to unlock is available outside the US and they'll get it - law or no law. There's no requirement on the part of Google to prevent this being installed (indeed, how could they?). It's just like the strong encryption ban on export, or on DVD players which don't honour region locking. Just get what you want from somewhere it's not subject to a silly ban and move on.
Another likely outcome is someone releasing `swipetounlock.apk` on the marketplace (and elsewhere) adding back stuff Google isn't allowed to do (for free).
It's hard to imagine anything that can't be spun off this way. There's no obligation on the part of HTC to prevent EU/Japanese etc roms from working on US phones, nor to prevent their download based on location.
Why use the keyboard at all, vs clicking on things with a mouse. This works better somewhere you're not being watched, such as at home. Then again at home it's unlikely there's a hostile smartphone spying on you, other than via malware.
> Then they will come asking for larger and larger bribes to keep quiet. Refuse? Why, they might just > take it from you, throw you in the local jail with some unpleasant locals, or drop a dime on you to the > embassy/consulate of the country looking for you.
Yeah, only you're in the jungle with a gun. What's the first rule of extortion? Never demand more money from someone than it will cost them to have YOU killed!
> But as usual, the first to make the whole concept work together so well even the average brain-dead > consumer has no problem using it to its potential.
But they're losing to Android anyway now, so more people obviously find Android easier to use than iPhones. It's possible, of course, that they don't find them easier to use, but then there must be another reason why they prefer Android.
Anyway, how hard is it to run apps, make phone calls, email etc? Not very hard, lets be honest, on any platform.
Yeah, we should be sending clueless non-technical "development managers" into space. There are fucking loads of them, and you'd never miss a thing if they never came back.
> I agree about the capacitative buttons, and is one of the reasons I'm hanging on to my HTC Desire is > it's real physical buttons
Even if you have to press the Back button harder and harder as each month passes.
I like my Desire, but the shitty multitouch and the laughable amount of free RAM piss me off. But..not enough to want to spend £600 (or whatever) on the new phones which offer little more than fixes for that problem. Think I might sit this next generation out and perhaps upgrade again in a year or so's time, and use a Kindle for reading, offline surfing/rss feed reading it the meantime.
Why do phones cost more than tablets, anyway? They sell more, and must be far cheaper to produce.
Russia is still as fucked as it ever was. When the people who live their yearn for the good old days of queuing for potatoes and strict censorship you know nothing ever changed.
It's not about how smart I am. Clearly, my interest in reading comments is in reading other people's comments - if I wanted to read my own comments I'd get a blog.
If *you* know about science, and could pass a test, you'd get a science mark against your name, and so I could filter away non sciency people and your comment would rise to the top. The other 99% of idiots can post away to their hearts content, but your contribution would be noticed.
On a development article, though, perhaps you're not too hot. Maybe you're a manager or a web developer, in which case you have nothing of interest for me; you'd fail your development test and your comments would be down below with all the rest of them.
We already have a filter for funny, ACs etc (both of which I filter down cos neither of them contribute anything meaningful to technical discussions) - I just want more granularity.
I think the comments are the worse thing about this site. Too many users, notenough nerds. There needs to be some sort of entrance test and the ability to filter out those who fail.
Slashdot Mirror
Why? Can't you just use an OS browser instead?
> No, you just don't know how to ask "what if?" questions about the past.
Why - is there a way of asking 'what if' questions where you can predict with any useful level of reliability what would have happened?
Why stop there? Why not predict the future starting from now? No need for any uncertainty - it's easy!
It was shunned by the same 48 people who weren't going to see it anyway.
Meanwhile...
http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/2009/HURTL.php
Production Budget $15,000,000
Theatrical Performance
Total US Gross $17,017,811
International Gross $32,660,965
Worldwide Gross $49,678,776
Home Market Performance
US DVD Sales: $33,721,130
Boycotting a movie - why bother? No-one cares what movie you're going to watch/not watch.
My point being, though, that nobody cares about the law. Not when it affects them negatively, is not wanted, and is trivially worked around with no chance of being caught. Word will get out that a slide to unlock is available outside the US and they'll get it - law or no law. There's no requirement on the part of Google to prevent this being installed (indeed, how could they?). It's just like the strong encryption ban on export, or on DVD players which don't honour region locking. Just get what you want from somewhere it's not subject to a silly ban and move on.
Another likely outcome is someone releasing `swipetounlock.apk` on the marketplace (and elsewhere) adding back stuff Google isn't allowed to do (for free).
It's hard to imagine anything that can't be spun off this way. There's no obligation on the part of HTC to prevent EU/Japanese etc roms from working on US phones, nor to prevent their download based on location.
Still, a nice little earner for the lawyers.
He should have used `magical thinking` to attack Android. Wait, that's never going to work, what with it being absurd, childish nonsense.
Why use the keyboard at all, vs clicking on things with a mouse. This works better somewhere you're not being watched, such as at home. Then again at home it's unlikely there's a hostile smartphone spying on you, other than via malware.
> You STILL HAVE TO LISTEN to the USER INPUT REGARDLESS how it comes to you
> forum, bug tracker, email, note tied to a brick|rock, etc..
1) They've listened. They just disagree
2) This is the WRONG PLACE because it's a bug tracker, but it's not a bug.
Do you understand?
This 'customer is always right' stuff might sound good to you, but it's wrong and irrelevant.
In which field is Google a monopoly?
Pretty much all actions performed by a company are designed to destroy their competitors. That's the nature of the game.
Slander? But it's in writing, in a more or less permanent form. I'd go for the upgrade...
> Then they will come asking for larger and larger bribes to keep quiet. Refuse? Why, they might just
> take it from you, throw you in the local jail with some unpleasant locals, or drop a dime on you to the
> embassy/consulate of the country looking for you.
Yeah, only you're in the jungle with a gun. What's the first rule of extortion? Never demand more money from someone than it will cost them to have YOU killed!
He should have got them to go to a website containing Flash. That would have made the difference pretty obvious.
> Libre has negative connotations of "those people are probably a bunch of zealots like
> RMS".
Or worse - French.
> But as usual, the first to make the whole concept work together so well even the average brain-dead
> consumer has no problem using it to its potential.
But they're losing to Android anyway now, so more people obviously find Android easier to use than iPhones. It's possible, of course, that they don't find them easier to use, but then there must be another reason why they prefer Android.
Anyway, how hard is it to run apps, make phone calls, email etc? Not very hard, lets be honest, on any platform.
Yeah, we should be sending clueless non-technical "development managers" into space. There are fucking loads of them, and you'd never miss a thing if they never came back.
The GPU is not as powerful? That seems to be the only advantage to the iPad over the other tablets.
> Today, a Romanian gadget blog,
See. It's from Romania. This whole thing is pointless. How the fuck is someone in Romania going to get a scoop on anything?
> I agree about the capacitative buttons, and is one of the reasons I'm hanging on to my HTC Desire is
> it's real physical buttons
Even if you have to press the Back button harder and harder as each month passes.
I like my Desire, but the shitty multitouch and the laughable amount of free RAM piss me off. But..not enough to want to spend £600 (or whatever) on the new phones which offer little more than fixes for that problem. Think I might sit this next generation out and perhaps upgrade again in a year or so's time, and use a Kindle for reading, offline surfing/rss feed reading it the meantime.
Why do phones cost more than tablets, anyway? They sell more, and must be far cheaper to produce.
Are you going to talk about `post pc` now, or how the iPad will make PCs redundant?
Statisically, no-one uses tablets - more PCs are sold every minute than tablets sell in a month. Tablets are this year's netbook.
Yes.
Russia is still as fucked as it ever was. When the people who live their yearn for the good old days of queuing for potatoes and strict censorship you know nothing ever changed.
It's not about how smart I am. Clearly, my interest in reading comments is in reading other people's comments - if I wanted to read my own comments I'd get a blog.
If *you* know about science, and could pass a test, you'd get a science mark against your name, and so I could filter away non sciency people and your comment would rise to the top. The other 99% of idiots can post away to their hearts content, but your contribution would be noticed.
On a development article, though, perhaps you're not too hot. Maybe you're a manager or a web developer, in which case you have nothing of interest for me; you'd fail your development test and your comments would be down below with all the rest of them.
We already have a filter for funny, ACs etc (both of which I filter down cos neither of them contribute anything meaningful to technical discussions) - I just want more granularity.
For you very very special price. Because I am liking your face sir.
I think the comments are the worse thing about this site. Too many users, notenough nerds. There needs to be some sort of entrance test and the ability to filter out those who fail.
I put my HTC Desire next to a iPhone 3gs. You have to try and politely not laugh at the shitty, small iPhone screen with its washed out colours.
Perhaps you have some difficulty with your eyesight, though.
> Any phone manufacturer can do an update like this in just a few months.
Exactly. It's just Apple playing catch up to Android.
I can only assume the iPhone 5 wasn't quite ready for a high profile demo. Shame they're going to miss christmas. The prime, galaxy sii etc won't.
Maybe next year? Of course, there'll be new Android phones then too...