Why would Uber's driver churn be any worse than other taxi firms? Uber is very attractive in that you don't have a boss telling you what to do or bawling you out, and you can pick your own hours, without even having to choose ahead of time.
Of course it can be gamed. Uber is the gamification of taxi services. Everything is intended to be gamed. And the easiest way of gaming the driver ratings? By actually giving a good service and being polite. It costs nothing.
Of course be an asshole to real customers and pay accomplices to rate you. But that would cost you money. Poor gaming strategy.
He doesn't need to go back. He can buy an iPhone. Apple's business model isn't about tracking users. Whilst of course there's there's implicit traceability if you choose to use anything that needs the cloud, Apple doesn't force that on you, or do anything that is explicitly intended to track you for advertisers.
Third party software might track location. But that's mostly about making the choice whether you want to pay for an app up front, or opt for adware.
As to bloatware, again that's not a smartphone problem, that's an Android problem - where the business model invites manufacturers and networks to add their own crap on top of the apps already shipped in the OS.
Look your argument desn't even make sense within it's own assumptions. You say:
"Then Apple should stop making phones at all. It would reduce both fragmentation and choice. Win/win, isn't it?"
But of course that far bigger gain within your model would be for all the Android manufacturers to stop making phones.
Secondly just because large choice is the enemy of quality does not mean that reducing choice magically increases quality. Especially when you are removing the highest quality devices. As I said quality comes from people dedicating themselves to that outcome above all others.
All the things you mention are features, not qualities, or quality.
Consider a multi-tool. It has a pen-knife, pliers, a saw, 2 screwdrivers, scissors, a corkscrew, etc. Lots of features. But they are all very poor quality tools. In preference you would always use a knife of a specific kind, a real saw, a real screwdriver, a real corkscrew.
The multi-tool is a best useful to keep for an emergency when you have nothing else. Because it's not actually very good at anything.
And so it is with all that you are describing. A tablet isn;t the right tool for developing on. A PC is - desktop or laptop. Even with PC, the compile and upload cycle is measured in the minute range not the seconds range for a real-life app. An IDE based on a tablet is a toy, nothing more. You might be able to enjoy doing Hello World, but then any reasonable person would reach for a proper tool for the job.
Same with all the other features you describe. You're talking about a multi-tool, not a quality tool.
Look at it another way. Producing quality products is more about taking away the superfluous than adding things. Consider a hi-fi. AT the bottom end are boxes that do everything,. Then as you step up in price, the boxes add more and more features. Then they split into specialist audio devices amplifier, decks, etc. Then as the get even more expensive they increasingly concentrate on just producing the best possible reproduction, and the number of switches and controls and features reduce.
Android phone users are people who pore over feature lists. What they miss is that their devices are just awful to use when compared with an iPhone. Because of my job I have multiple phones on my desk all day every day. Androids and an iPhone. I'd never use one of the Androids for anything other than development purposes. I'd always choose the iPhone. Just as I'd always pick up a real knife as opposed to a multi-tiool knife when I have them both to hand.
The candybar phones that didn't come apart also tended to survive drops. Tiny screens, and rugged plastic. Nothing to do with shock absorption of instant dismantling.
I'm a developer for both Android and iOS, and Symbian OS before that. Fragmentation is a huge problem on Android. It means we need 3 times as many programmers to produce a worse quality app on Android as on iOS. If you don't realise that I suggest it's you who's lacking mobile development experience.
that the smartphone world as a whole would be even less fragmented if Apple switched to Android too.
Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater. PCs would also be less fragmented if everyone gave up on using Linux and OSX and just used Windows.
Quality is lost when everyone uses the lowest common denominator. And Android couldn't be a better example of that.
That's more a comment on the low salary paid to a Prime Minister in Office. Though of course you shouldn't feel sorry for them, because they more than make up for it with millions earned from speaking and directorships once they are out of office.
Tenders never include the full cost. This is one quango stopping working with another quango. This is losing British jobs for foreign jobs. The cost of any welfare isn't in the tender. The loss of capability for the Met Office, which is also used by other government departments isn't in the tender. The saving on one hand is a loss on the other.
Yes, it is the only art that requires that level of supercomputers. And the forecast isn't wrong nearly as often as you imagine. You're living in the past.
All forecasters get it wrong sometimes. It's an art as much as it's a science. And certainly the Met Office have too. Though it's famous mistake in not predicting a storm was back in the 1980s, and everything has changed since then.
Although we like to complain about poor forecasts, they're pretty damn good these days. And the MEt Office certainly is the British public's trusted forecaster.
Slashdot Mirror
Well that really convinced people.
Mate, the A-Z alphabet came from Europe, and 0-9 came from Europe/Middle East/India.
America didn't invent any of it.
Yes, it doesn't seem to offer any advantage over menlo - which does have a proper slashed zero.
Well the pro-Uber people usually call the anti-Uber people "statists".
No they don't.
The anti-Uber people usually whine about worker protections
Again, no, they usually go on about vehicle safety and insurance.
How do you know the politics of people discussing Uber/Taxis?
I don't think you have the IQ to be posting here.
My post was in response to you calling someone a shill. Not any of those things you mention.
they simply don't care about the millions of people they are hurting?
You really are quite the hysteric.
People who support the creative use of technology, and gamification of work shouldn't exactly be a surprise on a technology site such as Slashdot.
Just because someone has a different view to you doesn't make them a shill.
Why would Uber's driver churn be any worse than other taxi firms? Uber is very attractive in that you don't have a boss telling you what to do or bawling you out, and you can pick your own hours, without even having to choose ahead of time.
Of course it can be gamed. Uber is the gamification of taxi services. Everything is intended to be gamed. And the easiest way of gaming the driver ratings? By actually giving a good service and being polite. It costs nothing.
Of course be an asshole to real customers and pay accomplices to rate you. But that would cost you money. Poor gaming strategy.
He doesn't need to go back. He can buy an iPhone. Apple's business model isn't about tracking users. Whilst of course there's there's implicit traceability if you choose to use anything that needs the cloud, Apple doesn't force that on you, or do anything that is explicitly intended to track you for advertisers.
Third party software might track location. But that's mostly about making the choice whether you want to pay for an app up front, or opt for adware.
As to bloatware, again that's not a smartphone problem, that's an Android problem - where the business model invites manufacturers and networks to add their own crap on top of the apps already shipped in the OS.
Look your argument desn't even make sense within it's own assumptions. You say:
"Then Apple should stop making phones at all. It would reduce both fragmentation and choice. Win/win, isn't it?"
But of course that far bigger gain within your model would be for all the Android manufacturers to stop making phones.
Secondly just because large choice is the enemy of quality does not mean that reducing choice magically increases quality. Especially when you are removing the highest quality devices. As I said quality comes from people dedicating themselves to that outcome above all others.
I didn't miss it. I just rejected the idea assertion as the nonsense it is
All the things you mention are features, not qualities, or quality.
Consider a multi-tool. It has a pen-knife, pliers, a saw, 2 screwdrivers, scissors, a corkscrew, etc. Lots of features. But they are all very poor quality tools. In preference you would always use a knife of a specific kind, a real saw, a real screwdriver, a real corkscrew.
The multi-tool is a best useful to keep for an emergency when you have nothing else. Because it's not actually very good at anything.
And so it is with all that you are describing. A tablet isn;t the right tool for developing on. A PC is - desktop or laptop. Even with PC, the compile and upload cycle is measured in the minute range not the seconds range for a real-life app. An IDE based on a tablet is a toy, nothing more. You might be able to enjoy doing Hello World, but then any reasonable person would reach for a proper tool for the job.
Same with all the other features you describe. You're talking about a multi-tool, not a quality tool.
Look at it another way. Producing quality products is more about taking away the superfluous than adding things. Consider a hi-fi. AT the bottom end are boxes that do everything,. Then as you step up in price, the boxes add more and more features. Then they split into specialist audio devices amplifier, decks, etc. Then as the get even more expensive they increasingly concentrate on just producing the best possible reproduction, and the number of switches and controls and features reduce.
Android phone users are people who pore over feature lists. What they miss is that their devices are just awful to use when compared with an iPhone. Because of my job I have multiple phones on my desk all day every day. Androids and an iPhone. I'd never use one of the Androids for anything other than development purposes. I'd always choose the iPhone. Just as I'd always pick up a real knife as opposed to a multi-tiool knife when I have them both to hand.
There is very little fragmentation with iOS. You're muddling different platforms with fragmentation within platforms.
In 50 years I've never seen a scrap of evidence that choice brings quality.
Between companies, choice = competition and commoditisation, and that brings cheap - the opposite of quality.
Within a single company choice brings confusion and lack of focus.
Quality comes from people dedicating themselves to that target, rather than profits. And to narrowing focus down to very few projects/products.
Android's choice brings poor quality, partly because of that fragmentation. The only advantage is low cost.
So how old is the oldest part in your desktop PC? (I presume you never moved on to a laptop.)
But it's the perfect companion for Google Glass!
The candybar phones that didn't come apart also tended to survive drops. Tiny screens, and rugged plastic. Nothing to do with shock absorption of instant dismantling.
I'm a developer for both Android and iOS, and Symbian OS before that. Fragmentation is a huge problem on Android. It means we need 3 times as many programmers to produce a worse quality app on Android as on iOS. If you don't realise that I suggest it's you who's lacking mobile development experience.
that the smartphone world as a whole would be even less fragmented if Apple switched to Android too.
Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater. PCs would also be less fragmented if everyone gave up on using Linux and OSX and just used Windows.
Quality is lost when everyone uses the lowest common denominator. And Android couldn't be a better example of that.
That's more a comment on the low salary paid to a Prime Minister in Office. Though of course you shouldn't feel sorry for them, because they more than make up for it with millions earned from speaking and directorships once they are out of office.
Tenders never include the full cost. This is one quango stopping working with another quango. This is losing British jobs for foreign jobs. The cost of any welfare isn't in the tender. The loss of capability for the Met Office, which is also used by other government departments isn't in the tender. The saving on one hand is a loss on the other.
Everyone makes mistakes, eh? ;-)
Yes, it is the only art that requires that level of supercomputers. And the forecast isn't wrong nearly as often as you imagine. You're living in the past.
All forecasters get it wrong sometimes. It's an art as much as it's a science. And certainly the Met Office have too. Though it's famous mistake in not predicting a storm was back in the 1980s, and everything has changed since then.
Although we like to complain about poor forecasts, they're pretty damn good these days. And the MEt Office certainly is the British public's trusted forecaster.