it allows you to surf the web (the real web), calendaring, email, music, video, pictures, etc. and contrary to your belief most non-smartphones DON'T do that.
Maybe they don't in the US (since the US appears to be in the stone-age when it comes to telephony), but in Europe they do and have for quite a while.
You just don't like the device or Apple so you're trying to tear them down.
No, that's not the case at all. As previously stated, I only have 1 problem with Apple. Their computer kit is pricey but pretty reasonable (I personally wouldn't buy it, but I would recommend it to some people). I have no problem with the iPhone itself, other than the fact that it is massively overpriced for the feature set and is locked to a single provider. If they drop the price down to the same levels as other non-smartphones and unlocked it it would be pretty good.
I'll note that you found a slippery way out of being wrong, but you were replying to the other person when they mentioned new features on the iPhone via software updates so it's a natural assumption that you WERE referring to Apple in your reply.
I quite clearly did not mention Apple at all. Sure, Apple was included in the term "company" but it wasn't explicit. If you trust _any_ company to do something they haven't been contracted to do then you are nuts, and yes, this includes Apple. I haven't said they *won't* do it, I just said you have no guarantee that they will do it. If you are incapable of reading a comment without adding your own spin to push your argument then that's your business - I was quite clear with my wording.
It's a brand new phone, with a brand new OS, with no widespread consumer testing behind it.
You're saying that Apple released a product without doing significant consumer testing on it? That seems like complete crazyness - *every* device manufacturer does extensive consumer testing before release.
Anyone who would immediately allow 3rd party apps to be installed would be asking for trouble.
Funny, Palm (or US Robotics as it was then), Symbian (Psion) and Microsoft have all allowed 3rd party apps from from the release of their platforms. Were they asking for trouble? On the contrary - they realised that third party developers would be they key to their success.
If Apple really was trying to lock everyone out then why are the about to let everyone in via the SDK?
Because they realised that locking people out wasn't going to work - interested parties will continue to hack them to unlock the functionality Apple tried to restrict. The unsuccessful efforts to prevent this were creating bad press for Apple so they have been pushed into either continuing to fight a battle they can't win against the developers, or give in and provide an official SDK.
Why is there an SDK for desktop OS X?
We're not talking about the desktop platforms here - please keep on topic rather than pushing the discussion into an irrelevant direction.
for the less than 1% of people who want to SSH into another machine.
I'm not talking about the people who want to SSH into a machine - I'm talking about the normal smartphone users who make use of all sorts of third party apps on a daily basis. These are things like games, instant messenger clients, ebooks, various specialist applications, not to mention replacements for the built in applications with different functionality. As I mentioned, *everyone* I know with a smartphone uses third party applications, and most of them aren't the sorts of people to be sshing into machines.
What specific efforts are you referring to here? I have a Mac and an iPhone and an iPod and I'm not locked into anything.
So you're happilly using your iPhone on a service provider of your choice (i.e. not AT&T if you're in the states), using third party applications on your iPhone, updating the music library on your iPod without needing iTunes, etc?
-In what way is it bulky? Nice try. And it's not "really" expensive. It's more expensive than the Razr and all of the other shitty user interface laden, give away phones out there, yes. But it's far from the most expensive phone so let's not be too disingenuous.
Please point at any other non-smartphone which is as pricey and bulky as the iPhone.
-I'd say it's in a class by itself. It doesn't have every feature yet, but I would say it qualifies as a smartphone.
What makes it qualify as a smartphone? It won't let you run 3rd party applications - as far as I'm concerned that pretty much defines the main feature of a smartphone. Ok, so it does calendaring, web browsing and video playing, but so do most other non-smartphones too.
A smartphone is a device that provides computer-like capabilities, basically allowing the user to do whatever they want with the device (to the extent that the hardware is capable) rather than a normal phone which has extremely rigid software capabilities defined by the manufacturer.
Yet, it's not designed for the geek crowd who want to SSH into their computer (who the F does something like that anyway?)
Pretty much anyone who needs to administer systems when not at home but doesn't want to carry a notebook computer with them all the time (i.e. sysadmins who are on call). For the record, I have done it on numerous occasions and it has been a life saver - it's meant I could take 10 minutes to fix a problem and then get back to what I was doing rather than spend several hours in order to get to a computer.
I'd say you already lost this argument. Apple has already updated the phone several times and added new functionality, and another update is coming in Jan. They're already delivering on their promise of updating the functionality via software updates. Face it champ, you got this one wrong.
You'll note I never said Apple _won't_ do this - I said anyone relying on a vendor to provide new features on a device once they have bought it is nuts because you have absolutely no guarantees they are going to add the feature you need.
which I might add is only an issue to a VERY SMALL sliver of the buying public.
*everyone* I know who has invested in a smartphone or a PDA runs third party software on it. If you claim that only a very small proportion of the iPhone's target market care about this functionality then you are simply reinforcing my belief that the iPhone is not a smartphone.
If you want an $800 video camera that can also make phone calls and has a crappy user interface then go buy an N95
The N95 is free with an 18 month contract from O2 which costs £30/month. You can buy it SIM-free for about £300.
By comparison, an iPhone will set you back £269 on an 18 month O2 contract costing you £35/month and you can't buy it SIM-free.
And where do you get the idea that Apple locks devices down to control the whole market? That's definitely a jaded slant. I think it would be more accurate to say that Apple follows a different product strategy. Rather than just selling their software to run poorly on every crappy piece of hardware (ala Microsoft) they try to create a well integrated experience that works great and is easy to use. They have succeeded in the Mac, the iPod, and the iPhone
Who mentioned anything about Microsoft or trying to run software on other devices? Apple initially designed the iPhone to prevent third party software from being run on it - i.e. they only wanted their (and their partners') software to work with it. They wanted control of the hardware, the OS *and* the application software - the whole software stack. Similarly, they have done everything they can to prevent you having a free choice of service provider, even to the extent of breaking the law (in the UK customers have a legal right to have their phones unlocked, but Apple have ignored this law since the regulator has no teeth).
Note, this doesn't prevent an owner or developer from treating it like a smartphone.
Sure it does - it is missing many of the features that makes a smartphone a smartphone (no, having to apply un supported 3rd party hacks, or having to wait while Apple decides to allow access to *some* of the features does not count).
As an aside concerning the bulk, it's not a big deal in my experience. The iPhone is comfortable enough to hold up to your head for short periods of time.
Notice I said "bulk" not "weight" - the iphone is much much bigger to carry around than any other "consumer" phone. It's size is on-par with smartphones, not "consumer" phones.
After 10 minutes or so, you should either be finished your call or put on the headphones (for hands-free use).
You seriously expect people to carry headphones around with them _as well_ as the bulky phone?
So wait,... You argue in the first paragraph that smartphones are, in fact, consumer devices, but bemoan his argument concerning smartphone market. Maybe you guys should agree to agree here.;)
No, I said the use of the word "consumer" was a bad one. There are two markets - the smartphone market and the non-smartphone market. Both markets have consumers - the original poster used the word "consumer" to describe only the latter. And yes, I have used the same word (but quoted) to describe this market because I didn't really want to get bogged down in a language-war.
My complaint here is that the poster stated the the iPhone wasn't targetting the smartphone market and then stated it must be doing well because it has outsold Windows smartphones. Making comparisons between two markets like this is completely meaningless - it's like me declaring that a car manufacturer must be doing well because they've sold more cars than Airbus have sold planes this year. If you're going to make comparisons about how well something is doing you need to compare with other products _in the same market_.
first, it's NOT targeting the smart-phone market, it's targeting the consumer market. BIG DIFFERENCE.
I'm sorry, I can't believe that you can consider an iPhone to be targetting what you call the "consumer" market (as if smart-phones weren't aimed at consumers too). Let's see: It is pretty bulky and is really expensive - kind of like a smartphone. Certainly not the same market as "consumer" phones such as the Razr, etc.
not that it matters now anyway. last I heard it had a 30% of the smartphones sold in the US in the last few months, and has out sold ALL win-mobile based phones combined in that time frame. aparantly it's not doing too bad.
But you just said it wasn't targetting the smartphone market, so why are you comparing iPhone sales with smartphone sales? It would seem to be more sensible to compare iPhone sales with "consumer" phone sales (I'm pretty sure you'll find that "consumer" phones massively outsell smartphones too).
it is an open ended device in that it's easly upgradable by apple, at the moment. What's going to happen when the API is released (this february)?
If you buy something based on what a company says they will do in the future you are crazy - businesses make huge U-turns all the time, and I've lost count of the number of devices I've got where the manufacturer has said "oh, and it's upgradable so bugs will get fixed over the life of the product", only to find out that the life of the product is about a year and they made 1 firmware release (which didn't address most of the serious bugs) before end-of-lifeing it.
let me give you a clue: it will be the the mobile platform with the most developers. by far. from the get go - all indy mac devs will be on that API as soon as it is released. Others will follow.
I won't hold my breath - Symbian, PalmOS, etc. may be crap platforms, but they do have a hell of a lot of developers. And they have embraced third party developers from the start rather than giving them the finger and then deciding later on that maybe they should allow third party development after all.
I'm afraid I won't be buying an iPhone - it's far too expensive, massively lacks most of the features I need from a phone and Apple have repeatedly shown that they are more interested in locking devices down and trying to control the whole market rather than allowing their customers to fully utilise what they have spent their money on. Just because they have decided that they need to produce an open API *now* doesn't negate their actions in the past and doesn't promise a great future.
Lauding power over people like that, throwing tantrums, and scaring your employees by staring them down or through false calm just makes me very happy I've never worked for such people.
This was about the first thing that struck me when I read the article - it really doesn't sound like a good working environment to me.
Also, I suspect working under that kind of pressure is going to significantly increase the number of silly mistakes being made - not great for the stability of the product.
As for the iPhone can't say I understand what the fuss about this product is. Last time I participated in a discussion about it someone was rabbiting on about hacks to do video, as if video were an advanced feature for a modern phone. Please!
I have still to work out what the iPhone's target market is. It isn't a smartphone - it's lacking in too many features that smartphone users expect from their phones (such as being able to run third party software, using the phone to connect their notebook to the internet, etc), yet it is priced up there with the smartphones (more expensive than many too, and most of the smartphones can do 3G).
Sure, the iPhone's UI is supposed to be excellent, but what's the good in a nice UI if the phone is lacking the the features the target market needs?
The next step will be the determining factor in the future of media sales. Will you buy MP3s, unrestricted, for a reasonable price? Or will you continue to download it for free via Limewire?
I'll continue to download the albums, listen to them and then either buy the CD (if I liked the album) or delete what I downloaded (if I didn't).
When will people learn that only a few people really care about Linux?
Actually, I think this could be an interesting experiment - hand dual-boot Linux/XP machines to a bunch of kids who have never seen a computer before, leave them at it for a year or so and see which OS they use out of choice.
Even if the alternative to 3rd party licensed software is to use open-source video codecs and just forgo revenue from countries that have software patents, likely including your own?
Actually, I've thought for a long time that we should have separate Linux distributions for the retarded parts of the world. For example, Fedora US Edition and Fedora Rest Of The World Edition (complete with the ability to use patented file formats). I for one am getting pretty tired of having to jump through hoops just because of moronic laws which don't apply to my part of the world.
(And yes, I'm aware that it's *really* trivial to install the appropriate software from Livna, but this sort of thing should be installed as standard).
But look, people are complaining about Boeing when this is an example of the safeguards they have in place *working perfectly*. It reminds me when anti-nuclear wackos cite Three Mile Island as an example of unsafe nuclear reactors, when in reality TMI is an example of nuclear safeguards working perfectly despite a critical reactor failure.
I couldn't agree more. However, the original post stated that we should trust that Boeing are doing the Right Thing purely because they are commercially successful, which seems a completely crazy suggestion to make given how many businesses have become commercially successful for doing exactly the wrong thing.
They are fixing the problem because the FAA have said there is a problem, not because Boeing are a successful business - if the FAA weren't there then who knows whether the problem would have been spotted. Even if it turns out _not_ to be a problem, it is still good that they are required to double check it.
Doesn't the GPS System's binary blob require a PIN number ?
(hint : Binary Large OBject);)
Blob isn't an acronym. "Binary Large OBject" or the alternative "Basic Large OBject" are both backronyms. Additionally, the backronyms refer to a data type stored in a DBMS - I have never heard them applied to binary blobs in drivers.
Actually the reason why Airbus uses computers so extensively is that computers know better what the airplane can take and can't take in a any given situation.
This is fine so long as the computer has *all* of the information. But if it's a choice between exceeding the plane's flight envelope (and a chance of damage and a crash) and slamming into that bloody great mountain in front of us (certain death) I know which I would choose - will the computer necessarily have enough information to determine the correct choice?
Considering Boeing is the world's leader in passenger aircraft, how about we just give them the benefit of the doubt that they aren't retards?
Considering Microsoft is the world's leader in operating systems, how about we just give them the benefit of the doubt that they aren't retards?
Of course, I can't even begin to claim I know anything about this reported problem, but just claiming that a company must be doing the Right Thing because they have been commercially successful is crazy.
It's also great at the coffee shop and "manual configuration" for that would be onerous.
What configuration do you need at a coffee shop? The only things I can think of are IP address, netmask, gateway and name servers - all of which are already done through DHCP.
Yeah, and MS has refused to implement ZeroConf instead using their own, broken, proprietary crap.
It isn't so much that they have refused to use ZeroConf, it's that their own broken proprietary crap predates ZeroConf by a good few years. (Note: I don't use Windows at all - my only experience with Windows networking since Win98 has been trying to make my dad's WinXP desktop talk to his WinXP laptop, and frankly it's downright unreliable - give me scp instead any day of the week to transfer files between machines).
Why does everyone keep going after Apple for possible bricking of iPhones? You're applying 3rd party hacks which mess with the firmware, bricking is a possibility.
1. People were only applying 3rd party firmware because Apple intentionally prevented people from doing all the stuff you usually expect to do on a SmartPhone. 2. Apple knew the firmware would brick the phones - they made a press release saying it would _before_ they released the firmware, yet they did nothing to correct the problem (they could at least have prevented people uploading the new firmware to hacked phones). Read into it what you will, but it looked to me very much like the bricking of the phones was an accidentally-on-purpose thing.
No one has gone after Linksys for a bricked router after trying to apply 3rd party firmware.
To my knowledge, LinkSys have never released a firmware that would brick your router. Sure, you can brick it by applying a broken 3rd party firmware(*) but applying an official LinkSys firmware (even after you've been running a 3rd party one) won't brick it.
(* Actually, it's pretty hard to brick the WRT54GL - the boot loader, which is never replaced by the user firmware, is pretty smart and will let you upload a new firmware even if the one already on the router is completely screwed. So even if you uploaded a compeltely broken 3rd party firmware, you can usually just upload the official LinkSys one again and it'll all start working).
Finally, I think there are some parts of neo1973/openmoko that are not fully open-- can't remember, but I think it's the GPS or GSM driver/daemon.
The GSM radio and GPS receiver are covered by NDAs. The GSM radio provides a plain serial interface, so the software side is completely open. The GPS receiver requires some processing to be done on the host processor though, and this requires a binary blob. The binary blob provides an NMEA output though, so everything above it is open.
I understand that these are closed for regulatory reasons (fiddling with the GSM radio would be illegal in many jurisdictions, and ISTR the GPS licences require that there be some "safety" mechanisms built in, such as maximum speed and maximum altitude that the GPS can operate at, because the US government are idiots and are paranoid about people using GPS devices in missiles, etc.)
You can bet that someone will reverse engineer the GPS blob and write an open one before long though (I rather doubt this will make it into the official release though, due to the previously mentioned regulatory problems).
Don't forget that most open source software comes with big warnings that there are absolutely no warranties.
So does most closed source software... or did you expect Microsoft to compensate you every time Windows crashes?
Side note: I'm excited about openmoko, the open hardware (and open source software) cell phone. Waiting for the second revision, which will include 802.11.
Yes, I've been keeping an eye on the OpenMoko project for a while, since my experience of devices (phones, routers, PDAs, etc) of the past 5 years or so has been that the first versions always ship with serious bugs and then they are end-of-lifed after only a few months as they are replaced by a new version (with a similar number of serious bugs) - the product life cycle is too short and the firmware never gets stablised. So I've come to the conclusion that I have to be able to fix the bugs myself since the device vendors sure as hell show no sign of doing it.
Unfortunately the OpenMoko project seems to have had a lot of delays (their first "consumer grade" version was supposed to ship for Christmas, but they are going through another hardware revision cycle and from what I understand the firmware is no where near ready for normal users). Also, as tempting as it is to get the GTA02 revision of the FIC1973 phone, I'm still holding out for a version with HSDPA support since I have plenty of experience with GPRS, and frankly it sucks. Also, a smaller case and/or bigger screen would be nice - from photos there seems to be a lot of empty space in the case.
See, I'm no expert but I would think that nVidia's graphics drivers would also 'need to much about at kernel level', and they do not use the GPL. I've heard they have a little LGPL bit that connects the kernel and their driver or something like that.
The GPL must be attached to any "derived works" of the Linux kernel. I.e. if you write a module for the Linux kernel it must be GPLed. However, nVidia did not do this - they wrote their driver for Windows. They then took the Windows driver and wrote a GPLed interface library to make it work with Linux. So the interface library is derived from both the non-GPLed driver and the GPLed Linux kernel - the driver itself is not derived from any GPLed code so can remain under a different licence.
It is pretty similar to running your 802.11 drivers under ndiswrapper - the driver was written for Windows, not for Linux, so running it under ndiswrapper doesn't force the driver's code to be GPLed.
The makers of HD Fury *might* be breaking their licence agreement. Whether they are breaking the law rather depends on what jurisdiction they are in. Of course, they may not have a licence agreement - they might have got hold of a stack of HDCP chips without signing one (in which case someone higher up the chain broke theirs), or they might've just cracked the HDCP encryption (since the HDCP encryption was shown to be massively flawed and was broken even before the spec was ratified).
I'd bet some lawyer out there could successfully argue that it violates the DMCA, as it is a device being used to defeat a method of encryption. That would make the device illegal.
The DMCA does not apply to the whole world, no matter how much the US seems to think their laws do.
They have a competing, proprietary protocol and they want to use it as their normal lock-in, but why hasn't anyone picked up the ball yet on Linux? An open standard with multiple FOSS implementations to harvest that provides useful new functionality
Well this is the catch - *does* it provide useful new functionality to the average Linux user? My experience of auto-discovery protocols is that they are not especially reliable and I would much prefer to just set stuff up manually.
As an example, plugging 2 Windows machines into the same bit of network cable and giving them an IP address is supposed to let you access their network shares, but half the time one machine can't even find the other one (in my very limited Windows experience).
The manufacturers of HDFury say that it is a totally legal conversion device, but they're either ignorant, or lying. The specifications for HDCP-protected content state that it is up to the content provider whether analog outputs on the device are enabled. Something tells me they're not exactly honoring what the content provider tells them to do.
The consumer is not bound by the HDCP specs - only the licensee is (who signed the licence requiring them to follow the spec).
Actually, no. Privacy in Europe is deteriorating as well, especially in Germany and France over the last 2 years. It is just not as fast as in other countries because there are stronger oppositions and not everybody is as ready to jump into the 'Terror-thread' boat, mainly because we've been living with terror-threads for almost 40 years now.
Here in the UK we have been living with terror threats for decades as well. However, this doesn't seem to have stopped the Labour government from hyping the post-9/11 terror threats to push their agenda.
When I was growing up, there were reasonably frequent IRA bombings, but the public were told that if terrorism changed the way we live then the terrorists have won. These days I would say that the terrorists have definitely won (for now). I'm just not sure who the terrorists are anymore - the people setting off bombs, or the government who are hyping up the threat and terrifying everyone in an effort to erode our civil liberties.
Well, actually, if that's all you care about, isn't that all that matters? I mean, life can be good even without freedom and democracy.
The problem is that an individual can lose a *lot* of freedoms before they personally are adversely affected, but by the time it causes a problem for them it may be far too late to do anything about it.
Also, different individuals need different freedoms. For example, it isn't going to cause me personally an immediate problem if the government declares all middle-eastern people to be terrorists, and arrests them, since I'm a white British national - but the fact that it doesn't immediately affect me certainly doesn't mean it isn't wrong.
I would also like to mention that forcing democracy on everyone in the name of freedom is somewhat stupid - democracy is a pretty flawed system and if you cared about freedom you wouldn't be so quick to remove other nations' freedom to run non-democratic systems (whether they be flawed or not).
Not really, you just set up a box to watch the wire and add everything it sees to a large mail archive.
Which means you have to actually set up a box on the route that all the mail is taking (i.e. very close to the mail server) and sit there collecting mail for years. If I were storing my mail on a 3rd party server you would just need to access that server once and you'd get several years worth of archived mail.
Those are just reasons to run your own MTA. If you happen to like webmail, you can run your own webmail server. I run my own MTA and I use sqwebmail to provide the service for my family members who prefer webmail. I also use it occasionally when I want to check my e-mail from a computer other than one of my own.
The original poster cited "like Gmail" - sure, you can run your own webmail system, but it was pretty apparent that the original poster was talking about 3rd party servers.
And yes, I run my own MTA, and read my mail using Alpine. Other members of my family use Thunderbird and Squirrelmail to access the same server. I accept that different people have different requirements - I don't look at a mail client that people obviously find useful and say "why bother?". This is one objection I have to "personal messaging" systems on web-forums - people treat them like email, but you're stuck using whatever crumby interface the forum owner thought was nice instead of getting to choose a client that best meets your requirements.
Absolute speed is important to a fairly small number of users.
Yes. But it is important to me and probably quite a few other people, so it is a factor in "why bother?". Just because _you_ don't consider it important doesn't mean that other people are the same. Just declaring that something is pointless because you don't have a requirement for it seems rather arrogant.
And windowing systems essentially make that complaint obsolete. Unless you weren't aware that resizing, overlapping, and hiding windows are basic features in nearly all windowing systems.
It isn't obsolete at all - if I want my mail client at the front (because I'm using it), I probably want to see other windows at the same time so I can refer to them when writing mail. Having lots of clutter such as forward buttons, back buttons, address bar, etc is completely pointless - it isn't useful when reading and writing email.
Best not let your email get routed over the Internet, then. In general, however, this is the killer feature of hosting your own mail.
Aside from the fact that some of my email goes via secure connections anyway, if someone wants to read my mail they have to sit there watching each one go past on the wire. Whereas if I stored my mail on a third party server, anyone with access to that server would have instant access to several years' worth of archived mail. I know Google have a "don't be evil" policy but I don't have complete faith in *any* large company not to make use of information they have access to.
Doing a statistical analysis on a large mail archive is pretty easy, sitting there doing a similar analysis by watching the data on the wire is much harder.
How many people want to run their own high availability email server?
Not many, but that is hardly the point is it - the fact that some of us want to run our own MTA is enough to answer the "why bother?" question. In the early 90's, not many people wanted to run Linux, so clearly there was absolutely no point in Linus starting to develop it, right?
The mail server doesn't necessarily have to be "high availability" anyway - if my internet connection breaks then I can't send and receive mail. If I were using a third party webmail system then I wouldn't be able to access any of my archived mail either - I consider that a severe disadvantage.
Also, a large service provider is a bigger target for attack (whether that be a DoS, or an actual compromise leading to a data leak).
You've got one there, but like the absolute speed, it's an edge case.
And again you're falling into the trap of thinking "I don't need it, so it's a waste of time for anyone to develop software that does it since everyone has exactly the same requirements as me".
Totally subjective, and definitely not generally applicable.
Yes, it's subjective - why does that make my point any less valid? The original question of "why bother?" is answered pretty well by "because quite a few people quite like it" - it applies to a lot of other things too. For example, why are there so many different window managers around? They all do more or less the same stuff, but in different ways - the answer is clearly because some people prefer one interface to another.
Considering the abilities conferred to Gmail's spam filtering through the massive aggregation of email they have available
You should read some analyses on spam - quite a lot of them conclude that there is often very little to be gained by aggregating your filter-training across many users' mail rather than training based on just the individual's mail. This is because the types of mail different people receive are very different and using one persons mail when training another person's filters can increase the false-positive rate.
HTTP can be routed over SSH, so basically, webmail works just fine. Telnet is kind of a joke.
Depends very much on the device you are using. Generally I use an IMA
Slashdot Mirror
it allows you to surf the web (the real web), calendaring, email, music, video, pictures, etc. and contrary to your belief most non-smartphones DON'T do that.
Maybe they don't in the US (since the US appears to be in the stone-age when it comes to telephony), but in Europe they do and have for quite a while.
You just don't like the device or Apple so you're trying to tear them down.
No, that's not the case at all. As previously stated, I only have 1 problem with Apple. Their computer kit is pricey but pretty reasonable (I personally wouldn't buy it, but I would recommend it to some people). I have no problem with the iPhone itself, other than the fact that it is massively overpriced for the feature set and is locked to a single provider. If they drop the price down to the same levels as other non-smartphones and unlocked it it would be pretty good.
I'll note that you found a slippery way out of being wrong, but you were replying to the other person when they mentioned new features on the iPhone via software updates so it's a natural assumption that you WERE referring to Apple in your reply.
I quite clearly did not mention Apple at all. Sure, Apple was included in the term "company" but it wasn't explicit. If you trust _any_ company to do something they haven't been contracted to do then you are nuts, and yes, this includes Apple. I haven't said they *won't* do it, I just said you have no guarantee that they will do it. If you are incapable of reading a comment without adding your own spin to push your argument then that's your business - I was quite clear with my wording.
It's a brand new phone, with a brand new OS, with no widespread consumer testing behind it.
You're saying that Apple released a product without doing significant consumer testing on it? That seems like complete crazyness - *every* device manufacturer does extensive consumer testing before release.
Anyone who would immediately allow 3rd party apps to be installed would be asking for trouble.
Funny, Palm (or US Robotics as it was then), Symbian (Psion) and Microsoft have all allowed 3rd party apps from from the release of their platforms. Were they asking for trouble? On the contrary - they realised that third party developers would be they key to their success.
If Apple really was trying to lock everyone out then why are the about to let everyone in via the SDK?
Because they realised that locking people out wasn't going to work - interested parties will continue to hack them to unlock the functionality Apple tried to restrict. The unsuccessful efforts to prevent this were creating bad press for Apple so they have been pushed into either continuing to fight a battle they can't win against the developers, or give in and provide an official SDK.
Why is there an SDK for desktop OS X?
We're not talking about the desktop platforms here - please keep on topic rather than pushing the discussion into an irrelevant direction.
for the less than 1% of people who want to SSH into another machine.
I'm not talking about the people who want to SSH into a machine - I'm talking about the normal smartphone users who make use of all sorts of third party apps on a daily basis. These are things like games, instant messenger clients, ebooks, various specialist applications, not to mention replacements for the built in applications with different functionality. As I mentioned, *everyone* I know with a smartphone uses third party applications, and most of them aren't the sorts of people to be sshing into machines.
What specific efforts are you referring to here? I have a Mac and an iPhone and an iPod and I'm not locked into anything.
So you're happilly using your iPhone on a service provider of your choice (i.e. not AT&T if you're in the states), using third party applications on your iPhone, updating the music library on your iPod without needing iTunes, etc?
Please see J
-In what way is it bulky? Nice try. And it's not "really" expensive. It's more expensive than the Razr and all of the other shitty user interface laden, give away phones out there, yes. But it's far from the most expensive phone so let's not be too disingenuous.
Please point at any other non-smartphone which is as pricey and bulky as the iPhone.
-I'd say it's in a class by itself. It doesn't have every feature yet, but I would say it qualifies as a smartphone.
What makes it qualify as a smartphone? It won't let you run 3rd party applications - as far as I'm concerned that pretty much defines the main feature of a smartphone. Ok, so it does calendaring, web browsing and video playing, but so do most other non-smartphones too.
A smartphone is a device that provides computer-like capabilities, basically allowing the user to do whatever they want with the device (to the extent that the hardware is capable) rather than a normal phone which has extremely rigid software capabilities defined by the manufacturer.
Yet, it's not designed for the geek crowd who want to SSH into their computer (who the F does something like that anyway?)
Pretty much anyone who needs to administer systems when not at home but doesn't want to carry a notebook computer with them all the time (i.e. sysadmins who are on call). For the record, I have done it on numerous occasions and it has been a life saver - it's meant I could take 10 minutes to fix a problem and then get back to what I was doing rather than spend several hours in order to get to a computer.
I'd say you already lost this argument. Apple has already updated the phone several times and added new functionality, and another update is coming in Jan. They're already delivering on their promise of updating the functionality via software updates. Face it champ, you got this one wrong.
You'll note I never said Apple _won't_ do this - I said anyone relying on a vendor to provide new features on a device once they have bought it is nuts because you have absolutely no guarantees they are going to add the feature you need.
which I might add is only an issue to a VERY SMALL sliver of the buying public.
*everyone* I know who has invested in a smartphone or a PDA runs third party software on it. If you claim that only a very small proportion of the iPhone's target market care about this functionality then you are simply reinforcing my belief that the iPhone is not a smartphone.
If you want an $800 video camera that can also make phone calls and has a crappy user interface then go buy an N95
The N95 is free with an 18 month contract from O2 which costs £30/month. You can buy it SIM-free for about £300.
By comparison, an iPhone will set you back £269 on an 18 month O2 contract costing you £35/month and you can't buy it SIM-free.
And where do you get the idea that Apple locks devices down to control the whole market? That's definitely a jaded slant. I think it would be more accurate to say that Apple follows a different product strategy. Rather than just selling their software to run poorly on every crappy piece of hardware (ala Microsoft) they try to create a well integrated experience that works great and is easy to use. They have succeeded in the Mac, the iPod, and the iPhone
Who mentioned anything about Microsoft or trying to run software on other devices? Apple initially designed the iPhone to prevent third party software from being run on it - i.e. they only wanted their (and their partners') software to work with it. They wanted control of the hardware, the OS *and* the application software - the whole software stack. Similarly, they have done everything they can to prevent you having a free choice of service provider, even to the extent of breaking the law (in the UK customers have a legal right to have their phones unlocked, but Apple have ignored this law since the regulator has no teeth).
Face it, you j
Note, this doesn't prevent an owner or developer from treating it like a smartphone.
;)
Sure it does - it is missing many of the features that makes a smartphone a smartphone (no, having to apply un supported 3rd party hacks, or having to wait while Apple decides to allow access to *some* of the features does not count).
As an aside concerning the bulk, it's not a big deal in my experience. The iPhone is comfortable enough to hold up to your head for short periods of time.
Notice I said "bulk" not "weight" - the iphone is much much bigger to carry around than any other "consumer" phone. It's size is on-par with smartphones, not "consumer" phones.
After 10 minutes or so, you should either be finished your call or put on the headphones (for hands-free use).
You seriously expect people to carry headphones around with them _as well_ as the bulky phone?
So wait,... You argue in the first paragraph that smartphones are, in fact, consumer devices, but bemoan his argument concerning smartphone market. Maybe you guys should agree to agree here.
No, I said the use of the word "consumer" was a bad one. There are two markets - the smartphone market and the non-smartphone market. Both markets have consumers - the original poster used the word "consumer" to describe only the latter. And yes, I have used the same word (but quoted) to describe this market because I didn't really want to get bogged down in a language-war.
My complaint here is that the poster stated the the iPhone wasn't targetting the smartphone market and then stated it must be doing well because it has outsold Windows smartphones. Making comparisons between two markets like this is completely meaningless - it's like me declaring that a car manufacturer must be doing well because they've sold more cars than Airbus have sold planes this year. If you're going to make comparisons about how well something is doing you need to compare with other products _in the same market_.
first, it's NOT targeting the smart-phone market, it's targeting the consumer market. BIG DIFFERENCE.
I'm sorry, I can't believe that you can consider an iPhone to be targetting what you call the "consumer" market (as if smart-phones weren't aimed at consumers too). Let's see: It is pretty bulky and is really expensive - kind of like a smartphone. Certainly not the same market as "consumer" phones such as the Razr, etc.
not that it matters now anyway. last I heard it had a 30% of the smartphones sold in the US in the last few months, and has out sold ALL win-mobile based phones combined in that time frame. aparantly it's not doing too bad.
But you just said it wasn't targetting the smartphone market, so why are you comparing iPhone sales with smartphone sales? It would seem to be more sensible to compare iPhone sales with "consumer" phone sales (I'm pretty sure you'll find that "consumer" phones massively outsell smartphones too).
it is an open ended device in that it's easly upgradable by apple, at the moment. What's going to happen when the API is released (this february)?
If you buy something based on what a company says they will do in the future you are crazy - businesses make huge U-turns all the time, and I've lost count of the number of devices I've got where the manufacturer has said "oh, and it's upgradable so bugs will get fixed over the life of the product", only to find out that the life of the product is about a year and they made 1 firmware release (which didn't address most of the serious bugs) before end-of-lifeing it.
let me give you a clue: it will be the the mobile platform with the most developers. by far. from the get go - all indy mac devs will be on that API as soon as it is released. Others will follow.
I won't hold my breath - Symbian, PalmOS, etc. may be crap platforms, but they do have a hell of a lot of developers. And they have embraced third party developers from the start rather than giving them the finger and then deciding later on that maybe they should allow third party development after all.
I'm afraid I won't be buying an iPhone - it's far too expensive, massively lacks most of the features I need from a phone and Apple have repeatedly shown that they are more interested in locking devices down and trying to control the whole market rather than allowing their customers to fully utilise what they have spent their money on. Just because they have decided that they need to produce an open API *now* doesn't negate their actions in the past and doesn't promise a great future.
Lauding power over people like that, throwing tantrums, and scaring your employees by staring them down or through false calm just makes me very happy I've never worked for such people.
This was about the first thing that struck me when I read the article - it really doesn't sound like a good working environment to me.
Also, I suspect working under that kind of pressure is going to significantly increase the number of silly mistakes being made - not great for the stability of the product.
As for the iPhone can't say I understand what the fuss about this product is. Last time I participated in a discussion about it someone was rabbiting on about hacks to do video, as if video were an advanced feature for a modern phone. Please!
I have still to work out what the iPhone's target market is. It isn't a smartphone - it's lacking in too many features that smartphone users expect from their phones (such as being able to run third party software, using the phone to connect their notebook to the internet, etc), yet it is priced up there with the smartphones (more expensive than many too, and most of the smartphones can do 3G).
Sure, the iPhone's UI is supposed to be excellent, but what's the good in a nice UI if the phone is lacking the the features the target market needs?
The next step will be the determining factor in the future of media sales. Will you buy MP3s, unrestricted, for a reasonable price? Or will you continue to download it for free via Limewire?
I'll continue to download the albums, listen to them and then either buy the CD (if I liked the album) or delete what I downloaded (if I didn't).
When will people learn that only a few people really care about Linux?
Actually, I think this could be an interesting experiment - hand dual-boot Linux/XP machines to a bunch of kids who have never seen a computer before, leave them at it for a year or so and see which OS they use out of choice.
Even if the alternative to 3rd party licensed software is to use open-source video codecs and just forgo revenue from countries that have software patents, likely including your own?
Actually, I've thought for a long time that we should have separate Linux distributions for the retarded parts of the world. For example, Fedora US Edition and Fedora Rest Of The World Edition (complete with the ability to use patented file formats). I for one am getting pretty tired of having to jump through hoops just because of moronic laws which don't apply to my part of the world.
(And yes, I'm aware that it's *really* trivial to install the appropriate software from Livna, but this sort of thing should be installed as standard).
But look, people are complaining about Boeing when this is an example of the safeguards they have in place *working perfectly*. It reminds me when anti-nuclear wackos cite Three Mile Island as an example of unsafe nuclear reactors, when in reality TMI is an example of nuclear safeguards working perfectly despite a critical reactor failure.
I couldn't agree more. However, the original post stated that we should trust that Boeing are doing the Right Thing purely because they are commercially successful, which seems a completely crazy suggestion to make given how many businesses have become commercially successful for doing exactly the wrong thing.
They are fixing the problem because the FAA have said there is a problem, not because Boeing are a successful business - if the FAA weren't there then who knows whether the problem would have been spotted. Even if it turns out _not_ to be a problem, it is still good that they are required to double check it.
Doesn't the GPS System's binary blob require a PIN number ?
;)
(hint : Binary Large OBject)
Blob isn't an acronym. "Binary Large OBject" or the alternative "Basic Large OBject" are both backronyms. Additionally, the backronyms refer to a data type stored in a DBMS - I have never heard them applied to binary blobs in drivers.
Actually the reason why Airbus uses computers so extensively is that computers know better what the airplane can take and can't take in a any given situation.
This is fine so long as the computer has *all* of the information. But if it's a choice between exceeding the plane's flight envelope (and a chance of damage and a crash) and slamming into that bloody great mountain in front of us (certain death) I know which I would choose - will the computer necessarily have enough information to determine the correct choice?
Considering Boeing is the world's leader in passenger aircraft, how about we just give them the benefit of the doubt that they aren't retards?
Considering Microsoft is the world's leader in operating systems, how about we just give them the benefit of the doubt that they aren't retards?
Of course, I can't even begin to claim I know anything about this reported problem, but just claiming that a company must be doing the Right Thing because they have been commercially successful is crazy.
It's also great at the coffee shop and "manual configuration" for that would be onerous.
What configuration do you need at a coffee shop? The only things I can think of are IP address, netmask, gateway and name servers - all of which are already done through DHCP.
Yeah, and MS has refused to implement ZeroConf instead using their own, broken, proprietary crap.
It isn't so much that they have refused to use ZeroConf, it's that their own broken proprietary crap predates ZeroConf by a good few years. (Note: I don't use Windows at all - my only experience with Windows networking since Win98 has been trying to make my dad's WinXP desktop talk to his WinXP laptop, and frankly it's downright unreliable - give me scp instead any day of the week to transfer files between machines).
Why does everyone keep going after Apple for possible bricking of iPhones? You're applying 3rd party hacks which mess with the firmware, bricking is a possibility.
1. People were only applying 3rd party firmware because Apple intentionally prevented people from doing all the stuff you usually expect to do on a SmartPhone.
2. Apple knew the firmware would brick the phones - they made a press release saying it would _before_ they released the firmware, yet they did nothing to correct the problem (they could at least have prevented people uploading the new firmware to hacked phones). Read into it what you will, but it looked to me very much like the bricking of the phones was an accidentally-on-purpose thing.
No one has gone after Linksys for a bricked router after trying to apply 3rd party firmware.
To my knowledge, LinkSys have never released a firmware that would brick your router. Sure, you can brick it by applying a broken 3rd party firmware(*) but applying an official LinkSys firmware (even after you've been running a 3rd party one) won't brick it.
(* Actually, it's pretty hard to brick the WRT54GL - the boot loader, which is never replaced by the user firmware, is pretty smart and will let you upload a new firmware even if the one already on the router is completely screwed. So even if you uploaded a compeltely broken 3rd party firmware, you can usually just upload the official LinkSys one again and it'll all start working).
Finally, I think there are some parts of neo1973/openmoko that are not fully open-- can't remember, but I think it's the GPS or GSM driver/daemon.
The GSM radio and GPS receiver are covered by NDAs. The GSM radio provides a plain serial interface, so the software side is completely open. The GPS receiver requires some processing to be done on the host processor though, and this requires a binary blob. The binary blob provides an NMEA output though, so everything above it is open.
I understand that these are closed for regulatory reasons (fiddling with the GSM radio would be illegal in many jurisdictions, and ISTR the GPS licences require that there be some "safety" mechanisms built in, such as maximum speed and maximum altitude that the GPS can operate at, because the US government are idiots and are paranoid about people using GPS devices in missiles, etc.)
You can bet that someone will reverse engineer the GPS blob and write an open one before long though (I rather doubt this will make it into the official release though, due to the previously mentioned regulatory problems).
Don't forget that most open source software comes with big warnings that there are absolutely no warranties.
So does most closed source software... or did you expect Microsoft to compensate you every time Windows crashes?
Side note: I'm excited about openmoko, the open hardware (and open source software) cell phone. Waiting for the second revision, which will include 802.11.
Yes, I've been keeping an eye on the OpenMoko project for a while, since my experience of devices (phones, routers, PDAs, etc) of the past 5 years or so has been that the first versions always ship with serious bugs and then they are end-of-lifed after only a few months as they are replaced by a new version (with a similar number of serious bugs) - the product life cycle is too short and the firmware never gets stablised. So I've come to the conclusion that I have to be able to fix the bugs myself since the device vendors sure as hell show no sign of doing it.
Unfortunately the OpenMoko project seems to have had a lot of delays (their first "consumer grade" version was supposed to ship for Christmas, but they are going through another hardware revision cycle and from what I understand the firmware is no where near ready for normal users). Also, as tempting as it is to get the GTA02 revision of the FIC1973 phone, I'm still holding out for a version with HSDPA support since I have plenty of experience with GPRS, and frankly it sucks. Also, a smaller case and/or bigger screen would be nice - from photos there seems to be a lot of empty space in the case.
See, I'm no expert but I would think that nVidia's graphics drivers would also 'need to much about at kernel level', and they do not use the GPL. I've heard they have a little LGPL bit that connects the kernel and their driver or something like that.
The GPL must be attached to any "derived works" of the Linux kernel. I.e. if you write a module for the Linux kernel it must be GPLed. However, nVidia did not do this - they wrote their driver for Windows. They then took the Windows driver and wrote a GPLed interface library to make it work with Linux. So the interface library is derived from both the non-GPLed driver and the GPLed Linux kernel - the driver itself is not derived from any GPLed code so can remain under a different licence.
It is pretty similar to running your 802.11 drivers under ndiswrapper - the driver was written for Windows, not for Linux, so running it under ndiswrapper doesn't force the driver's code to be GPLed.
so the makers of HDFury are breaking the law.
The makers of HD Fury *might* be breaking their licence agreement. Whether they are breaking the law rather depends on what jurisdiction they are in. Of course, they may not have a licence agreement - they might have got hold of a stack of HDCP chips without signing one (in which case someone higher up the chain broke theirs), or they might've just cracked the HDCP encryption (since the HDCP encryption was shown to be massively flawed and was broken even before the spec was ratified).
I'd bet some lawyer out there could successfully argue that it violates the DMCA, as it is a device being used to defeat a method of encryption. That would make the device illegal.
The DMCA does not apply to the whole world, no matter how much the US seems to think their laws do.
They have a competing, proprietary protocol and they want to use it as their normal lock-in, but why hasn't anyone picked up the ball yet on Linux? An open standard with multiple FOSS implementations to harvest that provides useful new functionality
Well this is the catch - *does* it provide useful new functionality to the average Linux user? My experience of auto-discovery protocols is that they are not especially reliable and I would much prefer to just set stuff up manually.
As an example, plugging 2 Windows machines into the same bit of network cable and giving them an IP address is supposed to let you access their network shares, but half the time one machine can't even find the other one (in my very limited Windows experience).
The manufacturers of HDFury say that it is a totally legal conversion device, but they're either ignorant, or lying. The specifications for HDCP-protected content state that it is up to the content provider whether analog outputs on the device are enabled. Something tells me they're not exactly honoring what the content provider tells them to do.
The consumer is not bound by the HDCP specs - only the licensee is (who signed the licence requiring them to follow the spec).
Actually, no. Privacy in Europe is deteriorating as well, especially in Germany and France over the last 2 years. It is just not as fast as in other countries because there are stronger oppositions and not everybody is as ready to jump into the 'Terror-thread' boat, mainly because we've been living with terror-threads for almost 40 years now.
Here in the UK we have been living with terror threats for decades as well. However, this doesn't seem to have stopped the Labour government from hyping the post-9/11 terror threats to push their agenda.
When I was growing up, there were reasonably frequent IRA bombings, but the public were told that if terrorism changed the way we live then the terrorists have won. These days I would say that the terrorists have definitely won (for now). I'm just not sure who the terrorists are anymore - the people setting off bombs, or the government who are hyping up the threat and terrifying everyone in an effort to erode our civil liberties.
Well, actually, if that's all you care about, isn't that all that matters? I mean, life can be good even without freedom and democracy.
The problem is that an individual can lose a *lot* of freedoms before they personally are adversely affected, but by the time it causes a problem for them it may be far too late to do anything about it.
Also, different individuals need different freedoms. For example, it isn't going to cause me personally an immediate problem if the government declares all middle-eastern people to be terrorists, and arrests them, since I'm a white British national - but the fact that it doesn't immediately affect me certainly doesn't mean it isn't wrong.
I would also like to mention that forcing democracy on everyone in the name of freedom is somewhat stupid - democracy is a pretty flawed system and if you cared about freedom you wouldn't be so quick to remove other nations' freedom to run non-democratic systems (whether they be flawed or not).
Not really, you just set up a box to watch the wire and add everything it sees to a large mail archive.
Which means you have to actually set up a box on the route that all the mail is taking (i.e. very close to the mail server) and sit there collecting mail for years. If I were storing my mail on a 3rd party server you would just need to access that server once and you'd get several years worth of archived mail.
Those are just reasons to run your own MTA. If you happen to like webmail, you can run your own webmail server. I run my own MTA and I use sqwebmail to provide the service for my family members who prefer webmail. I also use it occasionally when I want to check my e-mail from a computer other than one of my own.
The original poster cited "like Gmail" - sure, you can run your own webmail system, but it was pretty apparent that the original poster was talking about 3rd party servers.
And yes, I run my own MTA, and read my mail using Alpine. Other members of my family use Thunderbird and Squirrelmail to access the same server. I accept that different people have different requirements - I don't look at a mail client that people obviously find useful and say "why bother?". This is one objection I have to "personal messaging" systems on web-forums - people treat them like email, but you're stuck using whatever crumby interface the forum owner thought was nice instead of getting to choose a client that best meets your requirements.
Absolute speed is important to a fairly small number of users.
Yes. But it is important to me and probably quite a few other people, so it is a factor in "why bother?". Just because _you_ don't consider it important doesn't mean that other people are the same. Just declaring that something is pointless because you don't have a requirement for it seems rather arrogant.
And windowing systems essentially make that complaint obsolete. Unless you weren't aware that resizing, overlapping, and hiding windows are basic features in nearly all windowing systems.
It isn't obsolete at all - if I want my mail client at the front (because I'm using it), I probably want to see other windows at the same time so I can refer to them when writing mail. Having lots of clutter such as forward buttons, back buttons, address bar, etc is completely pointless - it isn't useful when reading and writing email.
Best not let your email get routed over the Internet, then. In general, however, this is the killer feature of hosting your own mail.
Aside from the fact that some of my email goes via secure connections anyway, if someone wants to read my mail they have to sit there watching each one go past on the wire. Whereas if I stored my mail on a third party server, anyone with access to that server would have instant access to several years' worth of archived mail. I know Google have a "don't be evil" policy but I don't have complete faith in *any* large company not to make use of information they have access to.
Doing a statistical analysis on a large mail archive is pretty easy, sitting there doing a similar analysis by watching the data on the wire is much harder.
How many people want to run their own high availability email server?
Not many, but that is hardly the point is it - the fact that some of us want to run our own MTA is enough to answer the "why bother?" question. In the early 90's, not many people wanted to run Linux, so clearly there was absolutely no point in Linus starting to develop it, right?
The mail server doesn't necessarily have to be "high availability" anyway - if my internet connection breaks then I can't send and receive mail. If I were using a third party webmail system then I wouldn't be able to access any of my archived mail either - I consider that a severe disadvantage.
Also, a large service provider is a bigger target for attack (whether that be a DoS, or an actual compromise leading to a data leak).
You've got one there, but like the absolute speed, it's an edge case.
And again you're falling into the trap of thinking "I don't need it, so it's a waste of time for anyone to develop software that does it since everyone has exactly the same requirements as me".
Totally subjective, and definitely not generally applicable.
Yes, it's subjective - why does that make my point any less valid? The original question of "why bother?" is answered pretty well by "because quite a few people quite like it" - it applies to a lot of other things too. For example, why are there so many different window managers around? They all do more or less the same stuff, but in different ways - the answer is clearly because some people prefer one interface to another.
Considering the abilities conferred to Gmail's spam filtering through the massive aggregation of email they have available
You should read some analyses on spam - quite a lot of them conclude that there is often very little to be gained by aggregating your filter-training across many users' mail rather than training based on just the individual's mail. This is because the types of mail different people receive are very different and using one persons mail when training another person's filters can increase the false-positive rate.
HTTP can be routed over SSH, so basically, webmail works just fine. Telnet is kind of a joke.
Depends very much on the device you are using. Generally I use an IMA