The people at Google believe that if something can be quantified and identified, it MUST mean sometime. In the example given in the article summary, the only reason Google would assume that certain shots are "special" is that it happens to have the capability to identify certain locations, so OBVIOUSLY those would matter. Right? No, not at all. Google doesn't know what I want. Google doesn't know what I think is special. Google doesn't know what I think. The ONLY way it can have any hope of even making intelligent guesses about those things is to become more and more intrusive in the data it gathers about me. I don't want that. I don't want some collecting that much information about me. I don't even want some algorithm trying to figure out what matters to me. I like the idea of certain things being programmable. I like making the UIs to those things easier to understand. But I want to be in control. I don't want Google or any other company doing things because it thinks it understands me and what I want. That's prelude to Big Brother, at best.
All T-Mobile has done is separate the cost of the phone from the cost of the service. You can quit using the service at any time, but you still have to finish paying for the hardware you've purchased. How is that deceptive?
There will be a few real-world uses for Glass that are positive and cost-effective. For the vast majority, this device is a non-starter at any price, IMO. If you want to walk around pretending you're in a sci-fi movie, yeah, it's probably great if you're a 14-year-old, but most people aren't going to have a use for this AND they're not going to want to be seen wearing it AND it's not going to be socially acceptable. Once again, this is technology desperately in search of a problem to solve to justify its existence.
If you have a Mac, there's a standard user account called Guest. This account has privileges to do normal user things, but can't install apps or make other changes to the computer. (And the account has no access to other users' data.) No matter what the guest user does in that account, it can't hurt you —and the entire Guest account is in a fresh state each time you log in to it. It's designed exactly for something such as this, and it works very, very well in real use.
It's hard to tell whether you're truly ignorant or you're just trolling. Apple was never a part of the KHTML project, so they never worked with those guys. They simply picked up their code and started using it when they wanted to launch a browser. Apple and Google have been working together on WebKit for years now, and Google is splitting off to go its own way. The two situations aren't even close to analogous if you actually know what happened. This would only be similar if Google had never had a browser of its own and never contributed to WebKit and then announced that they were going to create an engine of their own based on WebKit. There's nothing WRONG with it, but I'm amazed at how fanboys treat the two companies very differently and have "selective" memories about the past.
If Apple had done this, people would be shouting about Apple trying to do something "proprietary" and making sure they were incompatible. Or some such idiocy. But people who love Google are willing to make up whatever excuse they need to make up to support almost anything their beloved company does. Some Apple users have been insufferable apologists for everything the company does, but the Google apologists are just as bad, if not worse, these days.
Chrome is a technology looking for a problem to solve, at least for me and for most people. Yes, Google (and maybe some other companies) would be happy if they were constantly controlling the apps you were using, but I so no advantage in that approach to me. (And I see serious disadvantages.) I have a MacBook Air that I'm very, very happy with. It's simple to use and manage. It's small and light. Why would I possibly be better-served by comparable hardware running a browser-based OS? It makes no sense from my point of view. I don't want it and I'm not buying it. If it happens to suit your needs, great. But for most people, native apps running completely without an online connection when necessary are the way to go.
The headline says, "Microsoft Mulling Smaller Windows 8 Tablets," but the truthful headline would be, "Many people are speculating that Microsoft is considering smaller Win 8 tablet." The headline as its written has no credibility, because nobody involved with the story has a clue what Microsoft's plans are.
If the government says it's illegal to make this information available — which seems like a clear First Amendment violation — it won't matter, because nobody is going to be able to stop the plans from floating around for people to find. Governments are having trouble understanding that they can't control digital "things" as they could easily control physical goods.
If you think that a government that kills and imprisons people for wanting to choose something different is a "similar philosophy" to a company which makes a product in a way that you wouldn't choose, you're as stupid as he is. That's the whole freaking point. It's not a "similar philosophy." One philosophy is, "You will do what we tell you." The other is, "Here's what we think is the best product possible; we want you to choose to buy it."
You're a moron who's just unhappy that he can't convince everyone to make the same decisions that he does. People make choices. You're just irritated that more people don't agree with you — and that you can't force them to do what you prefer.
This is one of the most idiotic comments ever posted here, but some people hate Apple so much that it's currently modded as "insightful." To compare Apple to a totalitarian government isn't just ignorant, but it's offensive, not offensive to Apple or its customers, but to the millions and millions of people around the world who truly DON'T have a choice. If you don't like what Apple sells, you simply don't buy the product. If you want something other than what they Chinese government allows you to have, you can be put into prison or killed for asking for it. In a market economy, you have choices. Whatever Apple makes in a category is a choice. You have others. If you truly think you have no choice because Apple provides A DIFFERENT CHOICE THAN THE ONE YOU WANT, you're an idiot and a fool.
As an iPhone user, I can't see why I'd possibly want Firefox. We've really reached the point that browsers are commodities for almost every user. I know some people are so in love with the idea of user-selectible choice that they can't imagine that a unified user experience is a good thing, but for the vast majority it's the best way to go. If you truly have some specialized need for a browser function that doesn't come with the WebKit-based Safari, you're probably already using another platform anyway. This just isn't the big deal it was back in the day when some companies thought they could control the web by controlling the browser. But some people haven't figured that out.
Unfortunately, a lot of nerds are under the impression that great products can be built and sold for almost nothing. These same people believe that if a product is more expensive, you're "obviously" just paying for high profit for the maker and paying extra for a brand name. It's bizarre that such delusions continue to be so relatively widespread. The sort of person who believes these things buys according to specs and laughs at the notion that one product can provide a better experience than another because of better components and better design. (Hint: Design doesn't just mean what a product looks like, but rather everything about it.)
What you have is a piece of junk. There's a reason that it sold for $89. If your time and effort are worth anything to you, the smartest thing you could do is throw this junk into the garbage and buy a decent piece of hardware, if you really have a need for a tablet. Junk like the hardware you have is going to do nothing but cause continuing frustrations.
Just because you're obsessed with gaming doesn't mean there's a magic bullet to convince your spouse to care about it, too. Let's say she cares about... I dunno... shopping for shoes. (I mention an interest that was an obsession with a recent serious girlfriend of mine.) Just because she cares about shopping for shoes, does that mean there's any way under the sun that she could get YOU to share her enthusiasm for shoes? The chances are virtually nil. Accept that she doesn't like gaming and has no interest in doing it. And when you make decisions about what to do with your time, remember that if you choose to invest a tremendous amount of time in something that becomes an obsession (for many), you might be laying the foundation for drifting away into separate worlds and losing contact with each other. I've seen marriages destroyed because people made bad decisions about such things. If you can be a casual gamer and not spend much time on it, that shouldn't be a problem. But if you're as obsessed as many gamers I know, it's going to blow up your marriage in the long run — just as any solo obsession from either partner is likely to do the same. Unless, of course, both partners want to settle in to an arrangement where they don't know each other any more and they just happen to live in the same house.
The rules for iOS are very simple. If you want to sell apps through the App Store — or sell anything inside those apps — you give Apple a 30 percent cut. If you want to sell through the web browser, you're own your own. The idea that Apple has any interest in controlling what are essentially web pages is sheer idiocy. There's absolutely no evidence to cause a rational person to even ask the question. It's only insane hatred of Apple and the desire to attack the company that could be behind such a question, because there is no rational reason to even bring it up. If you want to sell something through what is essentially a webpage that has a link on your screen, Apple has never shown the least bit of interest in stopping you. It's sheer delusion to suggest otherwise.
It's amusing to me that some people seem to be taking this seriously. There's a good chance that it'll never ship, IMO, but even if it does, hardly anybody will use it. What an amazing waste of time and resources.
Anyone who believes that the style of the UI remaining the same means the OS is the same is an idiot. What you're saying is sheer ignorance and prejudice. You don't have a clue what you're talking about, factually speaking.
Anybody who can write that "iOS is static and hasn’t improved since 2007" has no idea what he's talking about. He's writing on an Android-oriented site, so I can certainly understand why he would come from the point of view that Android is the best. That's a reasonable opinion, even if I disagree. But to claim that iOS has remained the same as it was in 2007 isn't just a disagreement about opinions. It's factually mistaken, and it's sheer idiocy. It's hard to give credibility to someone who claims to believe that.
It surprises me that some people act shocked to find out about the negative parts of Steve Jobs' personality. Anybody who was even halfway paying attention for the past few decades knew about his dark sides. It's very common, of course, for great achievers to come with strong negatives, so it was no surprise. But even if you didn't understand that it's true in general, the specifics have been out there about Jobs for many, many years. He was a visionary genius (even if a lot of technical-minded people still don't understand that), but he was also very cruel, selfish and overbearing at times. The truth has been very clear for a long time. Those trying to make him just a hero OR just a villain are off track. He was far too complicated for either of those roles.
If a user is too stupid to understand the difference between a private message and a message posted to a Facebook wall (or timeline, now), he doesn't need to be using Facebook. In fact, someone who doesn't understand that distinction probably isn't bright enough to be online in the first place.
There are a lot of potential problems with Facebook, and I don't like some of the company's practices. But this is a case in which the company did nothing wrong and Facebook-haters leapt on it in an effort to find SOMETHING to blame the company for. This one isn't close. A user needs to know the difference between a private message and a wall post on a website -- or else get off of the site.
If the iPhone didn't exist, I might very well be interested in Windows Phone. I think it's an interesting UI and has a lot going for it. However, I am VERY happy with my iPhone. There's nothing that Windows Phone does that makes me interested in looking seriously at it. A brand new product has to be an order of magnitude better than what someone is already using to make it worth the hassle of making a change. Even if I were to say that Windows Phone is the best platform out there (which I don't believe), it still wouldn't be MUCH better. For people already entrenched in the iOS world, I see nothing that Windows Phone brings to make us interested in switching. (And people who are attracted to Android are attracted to it for reasons that make Windows Phone antithetical to what they want anyway.) I just don't see who Windows Phone is that much better for. I have only one friend who uses the platform. He loves it, but the vast majority of my other friends are happy iPhone users (with a smattering of Android users in the bunch). Other than people giving up BlackBerry, it's hard to see what the legitimate target market is for Windows Phone. Most new smartphone users are going to either go with the perceive leading brand (iPhone, regardless of what others think) OR the mass market brand, Android, which they're going to see the most choices for. Microsoft's strategy isn't adding up in the current smartphone market, IMO.
You're not very bright, are you? The people who advocate for the GPL claim they are advocating complete freedom with code. The people who advocate for laws to punish murder don't pretend that they are in favor of people having the freedom to murder each other. In both cases, the advocates are trying to CONTROL behavior. People who are against murder admit it. People who don't want people to do what they want with software (unless they approve) are hypocrites.
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The people at Google believe that if something can be quantified and identified, it MUST mean sometime. In the example given in the article summary, the only reason Google would assume that certain shots are "special" is that it happens to have the capability to identify certain locations, so OBVIOUSLY those would matter. Right? No, not at all. Google doesn't know what I want. Google doesn't know what I think is special. Google doesn't know what I think. The ONLY way it can have any hope of even making intelligent guesses about those things is to become more and more intrusive in the data it gathers about me. I don't want that. I don't want some collecting that much information about me. I don't even want some algorithm trying to figure out what matters to me. I like the idea of certain things being programmable. I like making the UIs to those things easier to understand. But I want to be in control. I don't want Google or any other company doing things because it thinks it understands me and what I want. That's prelude to Big Brother, at best.
All T-Mobile has done is separate the cost of the phone from the cost of the service. You can quit using the service at any time, but you still have to finish paying for the hardware you've purchased. How is that deceptive?
There will be a few real-world uses for Glass that are positive and cost-effective. For the vast majority, this device is a non-starter at any price, IMO. If you want to walk around pretending you're in a sci-fi movie, yeah, it's probably great if you're a 14-year-old, but most people aren't going to have a use for this AND they're not going to want to be seen wearing it AND it's not going to be socially acceptable. Once again, this is technology desperately in search of a problem to solve to justify its existence.
If you have a Mac, there's a standard user account called Guest. This account has privileges to do normal user things, but can't install apps or make other changes to the computer. (And the account has no access to other users' data.) No matter what the guest user does in that account, it can't hurt you —and the entire Guest account is in a fresh state each time you log in to it. It's designed exactly for something such as this, and it works very, very well in real use.
It's hard to tell whether you're truly ignorant or you're just trolling. Apple was never a part of the KHTML project, so they never worked with those guys. They simply picked up their code and started using it when they wanted to launch a browser. Apple and Google have been working together on WebKit for years now, and Google is splitting off to go its own way. The two situations aren't even close to analogous if you actually know what happened. This would only be similar if Google had never had a browser of its own and never contributed to WebKit and then announced that they were going to create an engine of their own based on WebKit. There's nothing WRONG with it, but I'm amazed at how fanboys treat the two companies very differently and have "selective" memories about the past.
If Apple had done this, people would be shouting about Apple trying to do something "proprietary" and making sure they were incompatible. Or some such idiocy. But people who love Google are willing to make up whatever excuse they need to make up to support almost anything their beloved company does. Some Apple users have been insufferable apologists for everything the company does, but the Google apologists are just as bad, if not worse, these days.
Chrome is a technology looking for a problem to solve, at least for me and for most people. Yes, Google (and maybe some other companies) would be happy if they were constantly controlling the apps you were using, but I so no advantage in that approach to me. (And I see serious disadvantages.) I have a MacBook Air that I'm very, very happy with. It's simple to use and manage. It's small and light. Why would I possibly be better-served by comparable hardware running a browser-based OS? It makes no sense from my point of view. I don't want it and I'm not buying it. If it happens to suit your needs, great. But for most people, native apps running completely without an online connection when necessary are the way to go.
The headline says, "Microsoft Mulling Smaller Windows 8 Tablets," but the truthful headline would be, "Many people are speculating that Microsoft is considering smaller Win 8 tablet." The headline as its written has no credibility, because nobody involved with the story has a clue what Microsoft's plans are.
If the government says it's illegal to make this information available — which seems like a clear First Amendment violation — it won't matter, because nobody is going to be able to stop the plans from floating around for people to find. Governments are having trouble understanding that they can't control digital "things" as they could easily control physical goods.
If you think that a government that kills and imprisons people for wanting to choose something different is a "similar philosophy" to a company which makes a product in a way that you wouldn't choose, you're as stupid as he is. That's the whole freaking point. It's not a "similar philosophy." One philosophy is, "You will do what we tell you." The other is, "Here's what we think is the best product possible; we want you to choose to buy it."
You're a moron who's just unhappy that he can't convince everyone to make the same decisions that he does. People make choices. You're just irritated that more people don't agree with you — and that you can't force them to do what you prefer.
This is one of the most idiotic comments ever posted here, but some people hate Apple so much that it's currently modded as "insightful." To compare Apple to a totalitarian government isn't just ignorant, but it's offensive, not offensive to Apple or its customers, but to the millions and millions of people around the world who truly DON'T have a choice. If you don't like what Apple sells, you simply don't buy the product. If you want something other than what they Chinese government allows you to have, you can be put into prison or killed for asking for it. In a market economy, you have choices. Whatever Apple makes in a category is a choice. You have others. If you truly think you have no choice because Apple provides A DIFFERENT CHOICE THAN THE ONE YOU WANT, you're an idiot and a fool.
You're not only a moron, but you're rude as well. Interesting.
As an iPhone user, I can't see why I'd possibly want Firefox. We've really reached the point that browsers are commodities for almost every user. I know some people are so in love with the idea of user-selectible choice that they can't imagine that a unified user experience is a good thing, but for the vast majority it's the best way to go. If you truly have some specialized need for a browser function that doesn't come with the WebKit-based Safari, you're probably already using another platform anyway. This just isn't the big deal it was back in the day when some companies thought they could control the web by controlling the browser. But some people haven't figured that out.
Unfortunately, a lot of nerds are under the impression that great products can be built and sold for almost nothing. These same people believe that if a product is more expensive, you're "obviously" just paying for high profit for the maker and paying extra for a brand name. It's bizarre that such delusions continue to be so relatively widespread. The sort of person who believes these things buys according to specs and laughs at the notion that one product can provide a better experience than another because of better components and better design. (Hint: Design doesn't just mean what a product looks like, but rather everything about it.)
What you have is a piece of junk. There's a reason that it sold for $89. If your time and effort are worth anything to you, the smartest thing you could do is throw this junk into the garbage and buy a decent piece of hardware, if you really have a need for a tablet. Junk like the hardware you have is going to do nothing but cause continuing frustrations.
Just because you're obsessed with gaming doesn't mean there's a magic bullet to convince your spouse to care about it, too. Let's say she cares about ... I dunno ... shopping for shoes. (I mention an interest that was an obsession with a recent serious girlfriend of mine.) Just because she cares about shopping for shoes, does that mean there's any way under the sun that she could get YOU to share her enthusiasm for shoes? The chances are virtually nil. Accept that she doesn't like gaming and has no interest in doing it. And when you make decisions about what to do with your time, remember that if you choose to invest a tremendous amount of time in something that becomes an obsession (for many), you might be laying the foundation for drifting away into separate worlds and losing contact with each other. I've seen marriages destroyed because people made bad decisions about such things. If you can be a casual gamer and not spend much time on it, that shouldn't be a problem. But if you're as obsessed as many gamers I know, it's going to blow up your marriage in the long run — just as any solo obsession from either partner is likely to do the same. Unless, of course, both partners want to settle in to an arrangement where they don't know each other any more and they just happen to live in the same house.
The rules for iOS are very simple. If you want to sell apps through the App Store — or sell anything inside those apps — you give Apple a 30 percent cut. If you want to sell through the web browser, you're own your own. The idea that Apple has any interest in controlling what are essentially web pages is sheer idiocy. There's absolutely no evidence to cause a rational person to even ask the question. It's only insane hatred of Apple and the desire to attack the company that could be behind such a question, because there is no rational reason to even bring it up. If you want to sell something through what is essentially a webpage that has a link on your screen, Apple has never shown the least bit of interest in stopping you. It's sheer delusion to suggest otherwise.
It's amusing to me that some people seem to be taking this seriously. There's a good chance that it'll never ship, IMO, but even if it does, hardly anybody will use it. What an amazing waste of time and resources.
Anyone who believes that the style of the UI remaining the same means the OS is the same is an idiot. What you're saying is sheer ignorance and prejudice. You don't have a clue what you're talking about, factually speaking.
Anybody who can write that "iOS is static and hasn’t improved since 2007" has no idea what he's talking about. He's writing on an Android-oriented site, so I can certainly understand why he would come from the point of view that Android is the best. That's a reasonable opinion, even if I disagree. But to claim that iOS has remained the same as it was in 2007 isn't just a disagreement about opinions. It's factually mistaken, and it's sheer idiocy. It's hard to give credibility to someone who claims to believe that.
It surprises me that some people act shocked to find out about the negative parts of Steve Jobs' personality. Anybody who was even halfway paying attention for the past few decades knew about his dark sides. It's very common, of course, for great achievers to come with strong negatives, so it was no surprise. But even if you didn't understand that it's true in general, the specifics have been out there about Jobs for many, many years. He was a visionary genius (even if a lot of technical-minded people still don't understand that), but he was also very cruel, selfish and overbearing at times. The truth has been very clear for a long time. Those trying to make him just a hero OR just a villain are off track. He was far too complicated for either of those roles.
If a user is too stupid to understand the difference between a private message and a message posted to a Facebook wall (or timeline, now), he doesn't need to be using Facebook. In fact, someone who doesn't understand that distinction probably isn't bright enough to be online in the first place. There are a lot of potential problems with Facebook, and I don't like some of the company's practices. But this is a case in which the company did nothing wrong and Facebook-haters leapt on it in an effort to find SOMETHING to blame the company for. This one isn't close. A user needs to know the difference between a private message and a wall post on a website -- or else get off of the site.
If the iPhone didn't exist, I might very well be interested in Windows Phone. I think it's an interesting UI and has a lot going for it. However, I am VERY happy with my iPhone. There's nothing that Windows Phone does that makes me interested in looking seriously at it. A brand new product has to be an order of magnitude better than what someone is already using to make it worth the hassle of making a change. Even if I were to say that Windows Phone is the best platform out there (which I don't believe), it still wouldn't be MUCH better. For people already entrenched in the iOS world, I see nothing that Windows Phone brings to make us interested in switching. (And people who are attracted to Android are attracted to it for reasons that make Windows Phone antithetical to what they want anyway.) I just don't see who Windows Phone is that much better for. I have only one friend who uses the platform. He loves it, but the vast majority of my other friends are happy iPhone users (with a smattering of Android users in the bunch). Other than people giving up BlackBerry, it's hard to see what the legitimate target market is for Windows Phone. Most new smartphone users are going to either go with the perceive leading brand (iPhone, regardless of what others think) OR the mass market brand, Android, which they're going to see the most choices for. Microsoft's strategy isn't adding up in the current smartphone market, IMO.
You're not very bright, are you? The people who advocate for the GPL claim they are advocating complete freedom with code. The people who advocate for laws to punish murder don't pretend that they are in favor of people having the freedom to murder each other. In both cases, the advocates are trying to CONTROL behavior. People who are against murder admit it. People who don't want people to do what they want with software (unless they approve) are hypocrites.