Larger BGAs with I/O counts above, say, 600, start to have real quality issues with sockets, especially if there are any significant number of high-speed I/O going out (which is very true for modern Intel CPU).
There are real engineering reasons (thermal, electrical, noise, bad contacts, you name it) to throw out the socket and use hard-soldered solution. I don't know why this is only being considered a lame cost-cutting move.
If you defaced a billboard, can they sue you for that? Clearly yes, that is an obvious case of causing destruction of property.
What if you simply planted a giant tree in front of a billboard, obscuring it from view from most bypassers? Can you be sued over that? IANAL, so I don't know the answer, but I imagine this legal terrain has already been well traveled.
Why should a programmer be required to do this? Why can't Ad-block and/or No-script be simply query-able?
The site should be able to simply ask the client, "are you blocking my ads?" in plain vanilla, and then decide from there which content to deploy.
I think this would also ease any legal concerns. As long as the add-on honestly conveys its blocking intentions to the host site, we have fair play on both ends.
Really, though, the fault of inaction is on us, we the people.
If you ask "us" if we believe in human-caused global warming, probably a majority of us would say "yes".
But if you then ask "us" if we are willing to pay $1-$2 more per gallon of gasoline as a possible remedy for global warming, and then ask us if we still believe in global warming, probably a majority of us would say "no".
Republicans understand this dynamic quite well... indeed, you could say this is their natural position on such issues until a majority of "us" are actually willing to sacrifice something to improve the environment.
On this particular issue, I think it's Big Oil campaign contributions that are ruling the day, more than any ideological barriers. That distinction could very well be a small one.
It had to be an "iDevice" didn't it. Never mind that all smartphones are all roughly equal in their environmental costs... you just gotta undermine your main argument to get a cheap dig / troll in.
Prohibits distributions of software libraries? Possibly. Prohibits custom UIs like Swype? Possibly. Who can really say? Anything that causes one person's "experience" of Android to be different from another person's could be termed "fragmentation". All you can hope is that Google Won't Be Evil, whatever their lawyers are now saying.
That language is so flexible and so abstract that a good lawyer could use it to justify practically any kind of prohibition.
The problem is, every single Android manufacturer is striving to become dominant enough that they can fork and form their own monoculture. Samsung is almost there already... Amazon already forked, without even waiting to become dominant.
I disagree on speed. iPhone 5 wins on this count, especially compared to USA version of S3 (the gimped version). The new A6 processor in the iPhone 5 was the key innovation over iPhone 4S, not the screen size increase.
... Except that this very summary above sort of works against your argument. It's not about "Android" getting an OS monopoly, it's about SAMSUNG in particular. If they become dominant enough, they will fork Android just like Amazon did and start building their own walled garden.
Your ideal world only happens if a wider group of Android manufacturers each enjoy marginal success, not enough to make forking an attractive idea.
Apple Maps actually compares very well with Google Maps, despite the anecdotes being hyperventilated on Slashdot and a few other technology sites. I tried Apple Maps, and can tell you that:
Apple Maps wins by a mile on speed and responsiveness. I don't know how they do it, given that Google is no slouch in this department, other than assuming that Apple is pre-caching like mad.
Apple Maps just look nicer, with better fonts and better cartography. Perhaps it fits an existing stereotype, but Apple seems to have gone the extra mile to make their product look good.
In fact, the only obvious loss is navigation via local transit, with Google has, but Apple lacks.
Slashdot Mirror
As I/O counts go higher (and they are def going higher), the chances of stuff like this happening increase significantly.
Larger BGAs with I/O counts above, say, 600, start to have real quality issues with sockets, especially if there are any significant number of high-speed I/O going out (which is very true for modern Intel CPU).
There are real engineering reasons (thermal, electrical, noise, bad contacts, you name it) to throw out the socket and use hard-soldered solution. I don't know why this is only being considered a lame cost-cutting move.
There are real world similarities to consider.
If you defaced a billboard, can they sue you for that? Clearly yes, that is an obvious case of causing destruction of property.
What if you simply planted a giant tree in front of a billboard, obscuring it from view from most bypassers? Can you be sued over that? IANAL, so I don't know the answer, but I imagine this legal terrain has already been well traveled.
Why should a programmer be required to do this? Why can't Ad-block and/or No-script be simply query-able?
The site should be able to simply ask the client, "are you blocking my ads?" in plain vanilla, and then decide from there which content to deploy.
I think this would also ease any legal concerns. As long as the add-on honestly conveys its blocking intentions to the host site, we have fair play on both ends.
Really, though, the fault of inaction is on us, we the people.
If you ask "us" if we believe in human-caused global warming, probably a majority of us would say "yes".
But if you then ask "us" if we are willing to pay $1-$2 more per gallon of gasoline as a possible remedy for global warming, and then ask us if we still believe in global warming, probably a majority of us would say "no".
Republicans understand this dynamic quite well... indeed, you could say this is their natural position on such issues until a majority of "us" are actually willing to sacrifice something to improve the environment.
On this particular issue, I think it's Big Oil campaign contributions that are ruling the day, more than any ideological barriers. That distinction could very well be a small one.
It had to be an "iDevice" didn't it. Never mind that all smartphones are all roughly equal in their environmental costs... you just gotta undermine your main argument to get a cheap dig / troll in.
/sigh...
They should remove the word "patent" from that phrase. Lord only knows how much confusion it causes, especially on Slashdot.
Design Trademarks? Design IP? I dunno. Anything is better than "patent".
While I have some nostalgia over Twinkies, the fact remains the stuff is utter garbage.
Honestly, this stuff makes other junk food like Cheetos and Pop Tarts look healthy in comparison.
Not true. Major OS updates can be done without a PC. Indeed, that's exactly how I upgraded.
How am I off topic?
And trust me, Google would go nuts for fragmentation if that were the way to get Motorola insanely profitable...
This isn't about using trademarks in a branched OS. This about the terms of service for simply using an SDK to develop apps.
Prohibits distributions of software libraries? Possibly. Prohibits custom UIs like Swype? Possibly. Who can really say? Anything that causes one person's "experience" of Android to be different from another person's could be termed "fragmentation". All you can hope is that Google Won't Be Evil, whatever their lawyers are now saying.
That language is so flexible and so abstract that a good lawyer could use it to justify practically any kind of prohibition.
The problem is, every single Android manufacturer is striving to become dominant enough that they can fork and form their own monoculture. Samsung is almost there already... Amazon already forked, without even waiting to become dominant.
iPhone 5 was twice as fast as its predecessor, and is faster than any leading Android phone on the market.
But I guess that's not innovation in your world view...
Why are you interfering with Slashdot's unsubstantiated Apple trolling? Take your facts and reasoning out of here!
I disagree on speed. iPhone 5 wins on this count, especially compared to USA version of S3 (the gimped version). The new A6 processor in the iPhone 5 was the key innovation over iPhone 4S, not the screen size increase.
What about... performance? The iPhone 5 is simply faster (especially compared to the USA version of S3). Go browse the web and see for yourself.
(oh wait, I forgot, NFC file transfer is much more important feature than... speed)
Here's one feature where iPhone 5 wins: performance/speed. Just browse the web on both phones, and see for yourself.
... Except that this very summary above sort of works against your argument. It's not about "Android" getting an OS monopoly, it's about SAMSUNG in particular. If they become dominant enough, they will fork Android just like Amazon did and start building their own walled garden.
Your ideal world only happens if a wider group of Android manufacturers each enjoy marginal success, not enough to make forking an attractive idea.
.. and I don't want to see Google as a big player either, given their business model reliant on advertisements (and selling out on privacy).
We all can come up with arbitrary reasons to root for one Fortune 500 company or another, at least I'm not hiding behind AC.
If you are comparing Android to iOS, you are kind of ignoring tablets and mp3 players in that analysis...
The A6 processor was a pretty major leap up from the A5. I don't know why people on here keep diminishing performance as a major selling point.
Apple Maps actually compares very well with Google Maps, despite the anecdotes being hyperventilated on Slashdot and a few other technology sites. I tried Apple Maps, and can tell you that:
Apple Maps wins by a mile on speed and responsiveness. I don't know how they do it, given that Google is no slouch in this department, other than assuming that Apple is pre-caching like mad.
Apple Maps just look nicer, with better fonts and better cartography. Perhaps it fits an existing stereotype, but Apple seems to have gone the extra mile to make their product look good.
In fact, the only obvious loss is navigation via local transit, with Google has, but Apple lacks.
The A6 processor is no small step up. That thing doubles performance of the iPhone 4S, which itself was a doubling over iPhone 4.
Let's face it, the iPhone 5 is currently performance king. Spend a little time surfing the web over LTE and there is no other conclusion you can make.
Perhaps we don't care about performance any longer, and more trivial features like having NFC or not are the important things to talk about...