Obviously every game is linear at some level, but some a lot more so than others. Halo games are far over on the linear side of things. Whether that's a good thing or bad depends on your tastes, but singling out Halo 3 for it after Halo and Halo 2 set the bar for it is silly.
In what way is Halo 3 far over on the linear side of things? What would be the vast swathe of FPSes that you would give as counter-examples? Are you talking about the way you work your way through a level?
I think games becoming this short is a recent phenomena. I remember that games like Duke3D, Quake2, Half-life etc took very long to complete.
Go back and play them again today. You'll find they're not quite as long as you remember and as a more experienced FPS-player, you'll blow through them even quicker now than you did in the past.
People throw this 8 hour number about way too much. IIRC, that came from a playthrough on normal. Playing on Heroic will take longer (though not much longer for an experienced FPS player). Legendary will take longer still and really, it's these two difficulties the game is supposed to be played at. Then there's finding all the skulls, playing the meta-game and getting the achievements. That's without even having started on the multiplayer. There's a lot more than 8 hours gameplay there. I'll wager there's several times the gameplay in Halo 3 as there is in Bioshock (which is fine because Bioshock is still a great game).
HD denotes a minimum resolution of 720, there is no disputing that.
Actually, 480p is the minimum for HD. Because it's not massively different to 480i though, people usually mean 720p and up when they refer to HD resolutions. 640p is a lot closer than 480p to 720p anyway.
The use of mp3 is overwhelmingly greater than the use of FLAC, which is negligible. The day Apple starts selling ALAC tracks, the format will overtake FLAC.
These christians (sorry for the name calling) are absolutely not interested in truth.
The trouble with phrasing it like that is that people could infer form what you say that being a Christian is responsible for deceit, which would be nonsense because there is a very wide variety of opinions on the subject within Christianity e.g. in Northern Ireland, the largest Protestant denomination would be the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, which would have a very high view of the Word of God. Contrary to what a lot of people on Slashdot would expect, our finest systematic theology professor (Stephen Williams, educated at Oxford, Cambridge and Princeton) would hold the view that Evolution happened and there are zero problems with him teaching that in systematics or apologetics.
I also assumed the difference was breeding. If you can't take two healthy organisms and breed them to produce fertile offspring, then they're different species. Which makes me wonder how, if a new species evolved, it would manage to reproduce.
There's a difference between choosing from time to time to act in a manner that would be consistent with communist principles and being 'decidedly communist.'
No, within Communism it would be a requirement. I didn't say they were Marxists, but communists. Lower case "c". As in "hippie commune".
They operated within the rest of society, rather than separating out and did not consistently share possessions; it was done when a need was spotted, therefore it is somewhat different to a commune.
That's right, and the context of this verse is what makes a member of the flock stray - in the case of the quoted text, MONEY and the cares of the world. "The love of money is the root of all evil".
Re-read what you just typed. It's not money, but the love of money. Money in itself is not a problem, it's money becoming an idol and therefore taking God's place. And once again, the context of that verse is responses to the word of God, not the use of money.
Do you know any wealthy people who aren't dependant on their wealth? I don't. Money is more addictive than any drug. The word "jaded" comes to mind.
I do. Besides which, it's what the Bible says about money that we're discussing, not your limited experience of people's flaws.
My point in quoting that is that most of your Republican money worshipers look down on poor people, and look at the homeless with even more disdain.
I'm not American and as a ministry student earn considerably less than the average wage, as do a fair chunk of people I know.
Sorry, not targeting you specifically, but anyone who happened to read the comment.
If that is the case, then I politely suggest you should perhaps be clearer concerning whom your statements are addressed to in the future. Saying 'You might think about that the next time you badmouth the homeless.' kinda gives the impression you're addressing me. If that wasn't the case, then apology accepted.
Some time in the 1970s my Grandmother gave me a "modern translation" called "The Way".
Can't say I'm familiar with it, but it wounds like a paraphrase i.e. not something that particularly highlights the benefits of better scholarship and sources.
Nope, lying is NOT a sin according to the King James scholars; the sin referred to there is slander, not lying.
I agree, but why do you trust the KJV or something else? How do you know its translation is accurate?
So no thanks, I'll stick to the KJV if you don't mind. It's been around for over a thousand years now.
More like 400 years and that isn't an advantage in any way, shape or form. The language is archaic and the meanings of quite a few words have changed. The manuscripts it was translated from are inferior to those of many modern translations - if you want something that's been around for a while, you want early manuscripts and therefore modern translations. And we understand Greek and Hebrew better now than people did 4 centuries ago, so even working from the same manuscript, we'd produce a better translation now.
You clearly don't like paraphrases (neither do I incidentally), but the North American Standard Bible, English Standard Version (my personal favourite) and Holman Christian Standard Bible are all very accurate, literal translations that you would benefit from using.
Acts 4:32-37 says that the early church was decidedly communist.
No it doesn't; it says that the early church shared possessions. This was entirely voluntary and done out of love for one-another. Within communism, it would be a requirement This is what one commentary has to day about it: 'As in ch. 2, what is important here is not to whom the possessions actually belonged, but rather the believers' attitude toward them. Once again it is clear that the selling of goods had to do with need and was not a formal condition of membership.'.
Then there are various things Jesus said: - mark 4:19 "And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful."
It's important to take verses in context. This is from a parable about responses to hearing the word of God and is warning that some people will get distracted by other things and fail to respond correctly to what they have heard. It's not an endorsement of any particular socio-economic theories.
Mark 10:23-25
Wealth in of itself wasn't the problem here; it as the man's dependance on it.
Matthew 6:26-32
Again, this is about dependence and security. Jesus is berating those who worry about their material possessions, rather than trusting God to provide for them. It is not criticising the concept of having wealth, but rather of requiring it in order to have security.
Jesus was homeless. Matthew 8:20
During his mission, yes, but there are no prohibitions against members of the church having homes. He was warning about the cost of discipleship and about how God needs to be prioritised above everything else. It wasn't a blanket prohibition against any of his followers owning homes.
You might think about that the next time you badmouth the homeless.
Would you care to point out where I did that?
Incidentally, if you're seriously interested in this issue, rather than just trolling, I'd suggest using a more modern translation than benefits from better manuscripts and more modern scholarship and reading a few commentaries on the relevant passages to see what other people think of them. When you just post a list of verses of the KJV and follow it up with a strawman attack, it gives the impression that you've just cut and pasted everything from some website that wasn't particularly interested in studying the text properly.
And one more thing: what do you make of Anias and Sapphira in acts 5?
America is strange in that its "conservative" party the Republicans would have you believe that they are Christians, when Christianity is decidedly anti-capital.
It's against making money and the pursuit of wealth into an idol, but it's not intrinsically anti-capitalist. Take the story of Anias and Sapphira in Acts for example. They sold a field for profit and gave some of the proceeds to the church, but lied about how much. What was their sin? If capitalism was wrong, you'd think they would be criticised for not giving everything to the church, but they're not. Instead, they're punished for lying. Making money was no problem and neither was keeping some of it. Making it an idol was the problem.
Good to see you too:) Though when I see your name, I picture a chunky monkey, rather than a chucky one.
References to the fear of God are of course more prominent in the OT, but Jesus does validate them all as pointing towards him in Luke 24 when he says that the Law and the Prophets )i.e. the Old Testament) are about him and Paul's writings in his letters to the Corinthians concerning wisdom highlight Christ as true wisdom, which steers us in the direction of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes (and Psalms) to find out more about the wisdom of Christ. A quick check reveals that the phrase 'fear of God' at least occurs in 2 Cor 7 in reference to bringing holiness to completion. It may occur elsewhere, but I'd have to look up my Geek grammar to make sure I'm putting the right terms into the search program and right now I'm a little sleepy.
Instead, here's the Hebrew behind the word for fear in Psalm 112:
'to be afraid, be frightened; to revere, respect; to be awesome, be dreadful, be feared; to frighten, terrify, intimidate; in some contexts fear relates to terror and fright, in other contexts fear relates to honor, respect and awe, as in "the fear of the LORD"
In some contexts, there is a potential conflict between love and fear (although just because someone fears you doesn't mean you don't love them), but in others, there seems to be more of a connection e.g. in relation in honour, respect and awe.
Hope this is in some way useful. My brain is somewhat fried (and frozen - a bad combination) at the moment, so it may be churning out little of any sense.
Actually the Bible frequently talks of the fear of God in a positive sense and being in no way opposed to God loving. A major theme of the book of Proverbs (and the Psalms for that matter) is that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.
Really? So, touch screen aside, what are the differences between the iPhone and N95? Neither of the two official retailers will even give me full specs on the iPhone. Here's what O2 has to say about each
So from everything I've gathered from looking at them both in bricks and mortar O2 shop and on the web the differences seem to me to be thus: [...] The rest is more or less the same
You missed:
iPhone: visual voice-mail, iTunes, iTunes Store, more space without having to buy and carry extra cards, bigger screen with twice the resolution, WiFi, superior browser, superior interface, nice box
N95: slightly smaller, slightly lighter, better camera
If the actual feature differences mean you would chose the N95, that's fine. I wouldn't chose either, given the price of both of them and what I use my phone for (though I would prefer the iPhone). I simply wish to correct the bizarre notion that there is nothing unique about the iPhone or that the only distinctive thing about it is the touchscreen.
Jonathan, I can see this is a passionate issue for you.
Not particularly. Not an iPhone owner, don't plan to be unless it becomes a lot cheaper and aside from wanting Apple to be financially successful so that they'll keep on making Macs, I'm not too fussed about whether the iPhone succeeds or not. I just happened to have an hour free and decided I may as well respond to the many people who had replied to me without understanding my comment.
but I do think they're somewhat overhyped and reserve the right to say so without having to be a hater
That's fine, and I largely agree with you. Where I disagree with you is in your assertion that there is nothing unique about the iPhone. A lot of people read my comment, assumed that I was a big fan of the iPhone and rather than contributing to the discussion about whether there was anything unique in its feature set, they insisted on telling me that the features were rubbish. I don't think I called you a hater in any of the replies I made to your posts, so if you got the impression, I apologise; the comment was directed at the other posters.
I'll attempt to clarify the statement I made that seemingly got your blood to 100 degrees C
Any chance you could dial down the rhetoric?
However, it appears to bring nothing new to the table that the average European mobile phone punter is likely to pay that sort of money for
Once you add that qualifier to what you're saying, I have less of a disagreement with you. Previously you were simply saying that i brought nothing new to the table at all.
No Video is a serious problem for more than a small minority.
I've never known anyone for whom that's a make or break factor in deciding which phone to get. Video quality is pretty poor on phones anyway. Of course anecdotes do not equal data; that said, any polls about the iPhone that I'm aware of have indicated that a big chunk of consumers would be very interested in buying it. The biggest objections seem to be the price and the carrier restriction, not the features. It seems to be the press and gadget fans who really keep going on about 3G. The average phone user doesn't need internet on the go or video calling.
No 3G is a serious problem for some people - and definitely on a phone selling itself at least partially as a good web browsing platform.
There is a degree of irony in that. It's arguably the best phone for several 3G applications, but can't use 3G. That said, the features are usefl if you're at a Wi-Fi hotspot.
The no-zoom, no-flash, 2 MP camera would be considered entry level even on a mid-range phone and would be a definite no-go for the segment of the market that is using their phone as their primary or only digital camera.
Not a lot of phones have optical zooms AFAIK. The absence of a flash is a downside, but if anyone is using a phone as their camera, I'm not entirely convinced that they'd think to look for one. Of course, that may just be me being elitist. I think more than 2mp is a bad idea on that size of sensor as well, though the sensor they're using isn't exactly the best one available anyway.
These criticisms could separately be leveled at other phones on the market, but together in a single phone they're pretty damning [...] Would the average European punter rather have multitouch or a good camera that does good video? [...] a good web browser or 3G and SatNav?
Well, let's take all these things together:
iPhone: multitouch, proper browser, syncs with iTunes, plays iTS files, runs iTunes, looks stylish, good battery life (the upside of no 3G, great interface, visual voicemail.
Other phone: 3G, SatNav, superior camera, ability to take low quality videos.
A multitouch screen is not a selling point, although a UI built using one might be.
The iPhone has a UI built for multitouch, so why make the distinction?
My last two phones have included Opera, although I believe the updated firmware replaces this with a WebKit-based browser (just like the iPhone)
Rendering engine =/= browser. There's the interface and hardware it runs on as well. Pretty much every review of the iPhone that I've read lauds the browser as being the first truly effective one on a phone.
I tend to use my phone as a bluetooth modem and browse the web with my laptop or 770 though, so I've not bothered updating it.
Exactly what I would do if I wanted internet on the go, so it mystifies me as to why Apple didn't make that possible with the iPhone.
Is having iTunes a major selling point for a phone?
Given the millions of iTS customers and iTunes users, yes.
My current phone can play music. I've used the functionality a handful of times.
Yeah, the novelty of being able to listen to Atlantic City on my Sony Ericsson wore off after a day.
Would a better UI make me use it more? Maybe, but I suspect I would still be unwilling to take the battery-life hit.
I've debated that a few times myself. There are a lot of people who would be content to charge their phone every other day (or every day) if they could use their phone as an iPod.
The iPhone has only one selling point
Nonsense. Style, cool-factor (stupid, I know, but let's face it, it is a factor), pocket-clutter reduction, visual voicemail, interface (which you acknowledge), iTunes integration, other media capabilities (it's better for playing back video than most phones) and a proper web browser.
The fact that there are enough people willing to pay a premium and suffer a lack of features to get a good user interface gives me some hope for the future of computing
Every single Series60 phone since november 2005 has a browser that uses the same rendering engine as the browser on the iPhone (WebKit which based on khtml)
There's more to a browser than the rendering engine i.e. the interface and the specifications of the device it is running on.
Motorola ROKR E1 for one.
It's crippled to the extent that it doesn't really count. Want to try again?
Phones with MP3 functionality, however, have been around for ages
They don't sync with iTunes, many of them can't play AAC (though Sony, in one of their rare moments of competency did see fit to include the capability in their phones), one of them can play FairPlay AAC and none of them let you browse and buy from the iTS. Oh and the iPhone can play iTunes video files too.
SonyEricsson sells a lot under the "walkman" brand name
The non-walkman ones have the capability as well.
Add to that the lack of even standard 3G, let alone 3.5G (HSDPA)
Don't care about them, they devour batteries like crazy and absence of features is irrelevant to a discussion about whether or not the iPhone possesses any unique features.
Like, but not as capable, seeing as how it's only a touch screen and not a multi-touch screen.
you can run opera mobile on htc touch (and all other windows mobile phones)
And quite a few reviewers have pointed out how vastly superior Safari is in terms of usability.
who cares about itunes?
The millions of people who use it to organise their music and/or have purchased music from the iTunes Store? Besides which, the original claim was that the iPhone had no unique features. I was simply refuting that claim.
btw as you can install software as you like to your windows mobile phone
I'm quite aware of that and don't give two hoots in the context of this discussion wince I was simply refuting an erroneous claim by a previous poster.
can your iphone play ogg
I don't have an iPhone and as long as there are not cheap contracts for it and it remains at such a high price-point, I'll be sticking with my k810i.
Beside which, I don't care about ogg and neither do the overwhelming majority of music listeners. The usefulness of iTunes far exceeds the usefulness of ogg.
Did you even read the post I was replying to? If you do that, you'll understand that I was pointing out the inaccurate claim about the iPhone not having any features other phones don't have. Whether or not your mum and dad want those features is a question that only you (and maybe your mum and dad) care about.
Inferior ones to the implementation of Safari on the iPhone.
That leaves you with iTunes and a multi-touch screen as your selling points
I probably should have said user interface as well, though that is partly covered by the multi-touch screen.
which are meaningless features
You don't seriously believe that, do you? The interface has been hailed as revolutionary and having iTunes makes it a much more viable iPod replacement than other phones.
and I certainly wouldn't swap the SatNav and decent camera out of my phone for them
I don't think you're the entire phone market. Personally, I don't care about cameras on phones and would be happy to see the back of them and don't care much for SatNav. That doesn't make the features 'meaningless' because there are plenty of people who do want them; but there are also plenty of people who would prefer the iPhone's feature set.
This is really missing my point
No I got your point; I just wanted to correct inaccuracies in your claims.
We've had the key features readily available for a while now.
And again we return to the interface, multi-touch screen and iTunes: all key features (arguably, the key features), none of which have been available on other phones.
Comparing the 6070 to the iPhone, it may only have half the features
Which was my point. Personally, I couldn't justify an iPhone; I have a k810i. I'm just sick of people saying rubbish like " all of its features are available generally in other phones" which istotally untrue. The iPhone haters are worse than the fans.
IMO it actually beats the iPhone for features
The features are different. Whether or not they are better is very much down to intended use and opinion.
A touch screen (the only thing the iPhone has that others don't) certainly isn't worth £269.
I'm assuming your playing the basic game though. If we're talking about the expansions, then yes, I'd agree it's very easy to get shutout early in the game. The Knights expansion, for example, is not really very well balanced.
I'd be inclined to agree, however I've had my most spectacular comeback in a knights game. 12 turns at the start with no resources rolled, only started acquiring any when everyone else had already acquired at least 3 extra VPs. Went on to win.
The good thing about the game is that there are more strategies, but once a strong player gets his green city upgrades (technology, science something like that) and is therefore guaranteed resource income on any roll, they're very hard to stop.
Abbles MakOS... Abble, does that mistake... Abble's OSX
Irony, meet El Lobbo. El Lobbo, meet irony:^)
I agree with the points you're making, but feel compelled to point out an error of your own: it's Apple's Mac OS X. We get a bit precious about the way it's written sometimes.
Why on earth would that ever be the default option for a directory move?
It's always been the default on the Mac.
The overwhelming majority of times I've copied a directory, I've been looking to replace, rather than merge. I can see how merge would be useful and arguably a better default, but the current (And historic) default isn't insane.
The finder asked me something, I clicked OK. I was dismayed to find that the dialog had asked me "Would you like to replace directory C, with A?"
Yeah, I wouldn't be calling anyone insane if you don't bother reading the helpful warnings they give you.
If it can easily scan 30fps at 1080 you're looking at a 1/30s exposure, which isn't too bad.
Actually, that's pretty bad for a stills camera. 1/30s is the lowest speed most people can handhold a camera a a fairly standard focal length. For any sort of telephoto work, it's useless without stabilisation and for a look of photography, you wouldn't be freezing motion, or you'd be way overexposing the image. Get it up to 1/3000s and you're talking about useable speeds.
Slashdot Mirror
In what way is Halo 3 far over on the linear side of things? What would be the vast swathe of FPSes that you would give as counter-examples? Are you talking about the way you work your way through a level?
Go back and play them again today. You'll find they're not quite as long as you remember and as a more experienced FPS-player, you'll blow through them even quicker now than you did in the past.
People throw this 8 hour number about way too much. IIRC, that came from a playthrough on normal. Playing on Heroic will take longer (though not much longer for an experienced FPS player). Legendary will take longer still and really, it's these two difficulties the game is supposed to be played at. Then there's finding all the skulls, playing the meta-game and getting the achievements. That's without even having started on the multiplayer. There's a lot more than 8 hours gameplay there. I'll wager there's several times the gameplay in Halo 3 as there is in Bioshock (which is fine because Bioshock is still a great game).
Actually, 480p is the minimum for HD. Because it's not massively different to 480i though, people usually mean 720p and up when they refer to HD resolutions. 640p is a lot closer than 480p to 720p anyway.
The use of mp3 is overwhelmingly greater than the use of FLAC, which is negligible. The day Apple starts selling ALAC tracks, the format will overtake FLAC.
The trouble with phrasing it like that is that people could infer form what you say that being a Christian is responsible for deceit, which would be nonsense because there is a very wide variety of opinions on the subject within Christianity e.g. in Northern Ireland, the largest Protestant denomination would be the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, which would have a very high view of the Word of God. Contrary to what a lot of people on Slashdot would expect, our finest systematic theology professor (Stephen Williams, educated at Oxford, Cambridge and Princeton) would hold the view that Evolution happened and there are zero problems with him teaching that in systematics or apologetics.
I also assumed the difference was breeding. If you can't take two healthy organisms and breed them to produce fertile offspring, then they're different species. Which makes me wonder how, if a new species evolved, it would manage to reproduce.
There's a difference between choosing from time to time to act in a manner that would be consistent with communist principles and being 'decidedly communist.'
They operated within the rest of society, rather than separating out and did not consistently share possessions; it was done when a need was spotted, therefore it is somewhat different to a commune.
Re-read what you just typed. It's not money, but the love of money. Money in itself is not a problem, it's money becoming an idol and therefore taking God's place. And once again, the context of that verse is responses to the word of God, not the use of money.
I do. Besides which, it's what the Bible says about money that we're discussing, not your limited experience of people's flaws.
I'm not American and as a ministry student earn considerably less than the average wage, as do a fair chunk of people I know.
If that is the case, then I politely suggest you should perhaps be clearer concerning whom your statements are addressed to in the future. Saying 'You might think about that the next time you badmouth the homeless.' kinda gives the impression you're addressing me. If that wasn't the case, then apology accepted.
Can't say I'm familiar with it, but it wounds like a paraphrase i.e. not something that particularly highlights the benefits of better scholarship and sources.
I agree, but why do you trust the KJV or something else? How do you know its translation is accurate?
More like 400 years and that isn't an advantage in any way, shape or form. The language is archaic and the meanings of quite a few words have changed. The manuscripts it was translated from are inferior to those of many modern translations - if you want something that's been around for a while, you want early manuscripts and therefore modern translations. And we understand Greek and Hebrew better now than people did 4 centuries ago, so even working from the same manuscript, we'd produce a better translation now.
You clearly don't like paraphrases (neither do I incidentally), but the North American Standard Bible, English Standard Version (my personal favourite) and Holman Christian Standard Bible are all very accurate, literal translations that you would benefit from using.
No it doesn't; it says that the early church shared possessions. This was entirely voluntary and done out of love for one-another. Within communism, it would be a requirement This is what one commentary has to day about it: 'As in ch. 2, what is important here is not to whom the possessions actually belonged, but rather the believers' attitude toward them. Once again it is clear that the selling of goods had to do with need and was not a formal condition of membership.'.
It's important to take verses in context. This is from a parable about responses to hearing the word of God and is warning that some people will get distracted by other things and fail to respond correctly to what they have heard. It's not an endorsement of any particular socio-economic theories.
Wealth in of itself wasn't the problem here; it as the man's dependance on it.
Again, this is about dependence and security. Jesus is berating those who worry about their material possessions, rather than trusting God to provide for them. It is not criticising the concept of having wealth, but rather of requiring it in order to have security.
During his mission, yes, but there are no prohibitions against members of the church having homes. He was warning about the cost of discipleship and about how God needs to be prioritised above everything else. It wasn't a blanket prohibition against any of his followers owning homes.
Would you care to point out where I did that?
Incidentally, if you're seriously interested in this issue, rather than just trolling, I'd suggest using a more modern translation than benefits from better manuscripts and more modern scholarship and reading a few commentaries on the relevant passages to see what other people think of them. When you just post a list of verses of the KJV and follow it up with a strawman attack, it gives the impression that you've just cut and pasted everything from some website that wasn't particularly interested in studying the text properly.
And one more thing: what do you make of Anias and Sapphira in acts 5?
It's against making money and the pursuit of wealth into an idol, but it's not intrinsically anti-capitalist. Take the story of Anias and Sapphira in Acts for example. They sold a field for profit and gave some of the proceeds to the church, but lied about how much. What was their sin? If capitalism was wrong, you'd think they would be criticised for not giving everything to the church, but they're not. Instead, they're punished for lying. Making money was no problem and neither was keeping some of it. Making it an idol was the problem.
Good to see you too :) Though when I see your name, I picture a chunky monkey, rather than a chucky one.
References to the fear of God are of course more prominent in the OT, but Jesus does validate them all as pointing towards him in Luke 24 when he says that the Law and the Prophets )i.e. the Old Testament) are about him and Paul's writings in his letters to the Corinthians concerning wisdom highlight Christ as true wisdom, which steers us in the direction of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes (and Psalms) to find out more about the wisdom of Christ. A quick check reveals that the phrase 'fear of God' at least occurs in 2 Cor 7 in reference to bringing holiness to completion. It may occur elsewhere, but I'd have to look up my Geek grammar to make sure I'm putting the right terms into the search program and right now I'm a little sleepy.
Instead, here's the Hebrew behind the word for fear in Psalm 112:
In some contexts, there is a potential conflict between love and fear (although just because someone fears you doesn't mean you don't love them), but in others, there seems to be more of a connection e.g. in relation in honour, respect and awe.
Hope this is in some way useful. My brain is somewhat fried (and frozen - a bad combination) at the moment, so it may be churning out little of any sense.
Actually the Bible frequently talks of the fear of God in a positive sense and being in no way opposed to God loving. A major theme of the book of Proverbs (and the Psalms for that matter) is that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.
Forget to add in favour of the N95: Superior Bluetooth functionality. Really don't know what Apple was thinking there.
Did you consider Apple or Nokia
You missed:
iPhone: visual voice-mail, iTunes, iTunes Store, more space without having to buy and carry extra cards, bigger screen with twice the resolution, WiFi, superior browser, superior interface, nice box
N95: slightly smaller, slightly lighter, better camera
If the actual feature differences mean you would chose the N95, that's fine. I wouldn't chose either, given the price of both of them and what I use my phone for (though I would prefer the iPhone). I simply wish to correct the bizarre notion that there is nothing unique about the iPhone or that the only distinctive thing about it is the touchscreen.
Not particularly. Not an iPhone owner, don't plan to be unless it becomes a lot cheaper and aside from wanting Apple to be financially successful so that they'll keep on making Macs, I'm not too fussed about whether the iPhone succeeds or not. I just happened to have an hour free and decided I may as well respond to the many people who had replied to me without understanding my comment.
That's fine, and I largely agree with you. Where I disagree with you is in your assertion that there is nothing unique about the iPhone. A lot of people read my comment, assumed that I was a big fan of the iPhone and rather than contributing to the discussion about whether there was anything unique in its feature set, they insisted on telling me that the features were rubbish. I don't think I called you a hater in any of the replies I made to your posts, so if you got the impression, I apologise; the comment was directed at the other posters.
Any chance you could dial down the rhetoric?
Once you add that qualifier to what you're saying, I have less of a disagreement with you. Previously you were simply saying that i brought nothing new to the table at all.
I've never known anyone for whom that's a make or break factor in deciding which phone to get. Video quality is pretty poor on phones anyway. Of course anecdotes do not equal data; that said, any polls about the iPhone that I'm aware of have indicated that a big chunk of consumers would be very interested in buying it. The biggest objections seem to be the price and the carrier restriction, not the features. It seems to be the press and gadget fans who really keep going on about 3G. The average phone user doesn't need internet on the go or video calling.
There is a degree of irony in that. It's arguably the best phone for several 3G applications, but can't use 3G. That said, the features are usefl if you're at a Wi-Fi hotspot.
Not a lot of phones have optical zooms AFAIK. The absence of a flash is a downside, but if anyone is using a phone as their camera, I'm not entirely convinced that they'd think to look for one. Of course, that may just be me being elitist. I think more than 2mp is a bad idea on that size of sensor as well, though the sensor they're using isn't exactly the best one available anyway.
Well, let's take all these things together:
iPhone: multitouch, proper browser, syncs with iTunes, plays iTS files, runs iTunes, looks stylish, good battery life (the upside of no 3G, great interface, visual voicemail.
Other phone: 3G, SatNav, superior camera, ability to take low quality videos.
The iPhone has a UI built for multitouch, so why make the distinction?
Rendering engine =/= browser. There's the interface and hardware it runs on as well. Pretty much every review of the iPhone that I've read lauds the browser as being the first truly effective one on a phone.
Exactly what I would do if I wanted internet on the go, so it mystifies me as to why Apple didn't make that possible with the iPhone.
Given the millions of iTS customers and iTunes users, yes.
Yeah, the novelty of being able to listen to Atlantic City on my Sony Ericsson wore off after a day.
I've debated that a few times myself. There are a lot of people who would be content to charge their phone every other day (or every day) if they could use their phone as an iPod.
Nonsense. Style, cool-factor (stupid, I know, but let's face it, it is a factor), pocket-clutter reduction, visual voicemail, interface (which you acknowledge), iTunes integration, other media capabilities (it's better for playing back video than most phones) and a proper web browser.
Amen to that.
Which was all I was pointing out my comment.
Think you just contradicted yourself there.
There's more to a browser than the rendering engine i.e. the interface and the specifications of the device it is running on.
It's crippled to the extent that it doesn't really count. Want to try again?
They don't sync with iTunes, many of them can't play AAC (though Sony, in one of their rare moments of competency did see fit to include the capability in their phones), one of them can play FairPlay AAC and none of them let you browse and buy from the iTS. Oh and the iPhone can play iTunes video files too.
The non-walkman ones have the capability as well.
Don't care about them, they devour batteries like crazy and absence of features is irrelevant to a discussion about whether or not the iPhone possesses any unique features.
Like, but not as capable, seeing as how it's only a touch screen and not a multi-touch screen.
And quite a few reviewers have pointed out how vastly superior Safari is in terms of usability.
The millions of people who use it to organise their music and/or have purchased music from the iTunes Store? Besides which, the original claim was that the iPhone had no unique features. I was simply refuting that claim.
I'm quite aware of that and don't give two hoots in the context of this discussion wince I was simply refuting an erroneous claim by a previous poster.
I don't have an iPhone and as long as there are not cheap contracts for it and it remains at such a high price-point, I'll be sticking with my k810i.
Beside which, I don't care about ogg and neither do the overwhelming majority of music listeners. The usefulness of iTunes far exceeds the usefulness of ogg.
Did you even read the post I was replying to? If you do that, you'll understand that I was pointing out the inaccurate claim about the iPhone not having any features other phones don't have. Whether or not your mum and dad want those features is a question that only you (and maybe your mum and dad) care about.
Inferior ones to the implementation of Safari on the iPhone.
I probably should have said user interface as well, though that is partly covered by the multi-touch screen.
You don't seriously believe that, do you? The interface has been hailed as revolutionary and having iTunes makes it a much more viable iPod replacement than other phones.
I don't think you're the entire phone market. Personally, I don't care about cameras on phones and would be happy to see the back of them and don't care much for SatNav. That doesn't make the features 'meaningless' because there are plenty of people who do want them; but there are also plenty of people who would prefer the iPhone's feature set.
No I got your point; I just wanted to correct inaccuracies in your claims.
And again we return to the interface, multi-touch screen and iTunes: all key features (arguably, the key features), none of which have been available on other phones.
Which was my point. Personally, I couldn't justify an iPhone; I have a k810i. I'm just sick of people saying rubbish like " all of its features are available generally in other phones" which istotally untrue. The iPhone haters are worse than the fans.
The features are different. Whether or not they are better is very much down to intended use and opinion.
It has more than a touchscreen in difference.
Really? Which other phones have a multi-touch screen? Which other phones have a good web browser? Which other phones have iTunes?
I'd be inclined to agree, however I've had my most spectacular comeback in a knights game. 12 turns at the start with no resources rolled, only started acquiring any when everyone else had already acquired at least 3 extra VPs. Went on to win.
The good thing about the game is that there are more strategies, but once a strong player gets his green city upgrades (technology, science something like that) and is therefore guaranteed resource income on any roll, they're very hard to stop.
Irony, meet El Lobbo. El Lobbo, meet irony :^)
I agree with the points you're making, but feel compelled to point out an error of your own: it's Apple's Mac OS X. We get a bit precious about the way it's written sometimes.
It's always been the default on the Mac.
The overwhelming majority of times I've copied a directory, I've been looking to replace, rather than merge. I can see how merge would be useful and arguably a better default, but the current (And historic) default isn't insane.
Yeah, I wouldn't be calling anyone insane if you don't bother reading the helpful warnings they give you.
Actually, that's pretty bad for a stills camera. 1/30s is the lowest speed most people can handhold a camera a a fairly standard focal length. For any sort of telephoto work, it's useless without stabilisation and for a look of photography, you wouldn't be freezing motion, or you'd be way overexposing the image. Get it up to 1/3000s and you're talking about useable speeds.