In iOS, there is a customer feedback system, where (just like Amazon) you can give a 1-5 star review rating.
I always check this before downloading anything, ignoring anything with particular low scores. And, just like Amazon, I am more willing to buy stuff if there are numerous objective positive reviews posted.
This article fails to prove anything particularly special about mobile apps versus any other kind of market.
And yet there are plenty of good paid apps, I even bought some of them. Apps that can never exist for iOS. You literally don't know what you are missing.
I doubt many companies are throwing a lot of development dollars at creating Android-only apps. Currently Android Marketplace doesn't even make as much $ as corresponding RIM and Microsoft mobile app stores. Indeed, I fully expect Amazon's App Store to supercede and eventually dominate the Android app sales, simply because Amazon knows a thing or two about retail.
Okay... Well, take a look at the web sites of some manufacturers like Samsung, ASUS and HTC. They have plenty of accessories available.
The fact that I have to go to the manufacturer's web site kinda proves my point about THIRD party peripherals.
I'm afraid that the magic Apple sauce can't change the laws of physics.
And that's why I granted you the win. Learn2read.
LOL. Apple actually convinced you of that... Please explain, I could do with a good laugh.
Apple didn't convince me of this. Nintendo, Sony, and Panasonic did.
It's a giant turd on a scale that crapware like Real Player and Windows Media Player can only dream of.
Your long diatribe proves my point... you're irrational here. Don't want all those Apple tentacles growing on your system? Simply click "no" when prompted. You just want iTunes for minimal file I/O and nothing more? Simply click "no" when prompted. It isn't that hard, really.
Have you seen those "iPad Arcade" things that seem to be popular at the moment?
If those "iPad Arcade" things were actually popular, I would have noticed by now. Let's face it, this functionality is not in demand right now, for mobile devices. That may change, and, if so, I expect Apple would more directly address it in a software patch. I kind of hope that Bluetooth 4.0 is the dominant means to do this kind of thing anyways.
Oh really? Show me a link to this magical app that does all that stuff.
copy-and-paste to clipboard works brainlessly simple. Various music/GPS apps on iOS have background utility, and can easily be accessed in the multitasking bar. "Learn to Google" was your phrase, I believe.
We are, and my point is with iOS you have no choice, it's a 1024 pixel screen or nothing.
I initially misread your post, thought you were comparing an iPad to a Thinkpad. Anyways, it's fair to say most Android devices (or even a majority of Android tablets) are not exceeding 1024 pixels, even if some at the top end are.
Saves all that pointless zooming and scrolling you have to do on iOS.
For a web page with a little text but a lot of other content, you don't want the brower to be reformatting anything. And for a web page that is mostly text, Apple's Safari Reader mode is superior to reformatting approach anyways. (Also, in the case of Slashdot, it already has a mobile-native site that obviates the need for any of this regardless.) I am "pinching and zooming" a lot less on my iPhone than you seem to think I am.
I'm at least acknowledging your stronger points. You, in return, are trolling hard here. At least be fair.
Nice try, but you'll have to work a lot harder to convince Slashdotters that the average upgrade experience on Android is at par or better than the average experience on Apple devices. Even with Samsung devices, you are still largely at the mercy of the cellular provider for Android updates.
2) The apps are lacking on Android
It's the walled garden filter on one side versus making no money (and thus no financial incentive to develop anything) on the other. A push at best.
3) Hardware software compatibility.
This comment has merit but is now dated with the release of iOS 5.0. And the last part of your comment complaining about peripherals is laughable... at least Apple devices have 3rd party peripherals to be compatible (or not) with in the first place.
4) The hardware is sub-standard by most, not all vendors in comparison to Apple.
Now you're just trolling mindlessly. Top tier Android devices are on par with Apple in hardware quality, the rest significantly inferior.
5) No user changeable battery. I push my phone quite hard and although battery life is better than what my friend's iPhone seems to get eventually that battery will wear out, and I want to be able to change it.
A sorta valid criticism, except that the battery in the iPhone has high quality and most evidence shows that it is plenty good over the typical length of ownership of a smartphone. I'll grant you the win regardless.
6) No SD card, and I need iTunes just to access the damn thing. The amount Apple charges for an extra 16GB is outrageous, more than I can get a 64GB SD card for.
Missing an SD card slot is a blessing in disguise, in my opinion. It WOULD be nice to have other means other than iTunes, though, to access your data from a PC or Mac. Although, on the other hand, your disgust for iTunes goes well into irrationality, as it is not half as unusable as most Slashdotters seem to suggest.
7) No USB host support, I can plug any random USB gamepad into the Transformer and it just works.
This is a significant letdown for you and the other 5 people yearning for this functionality, agreed.
8) Lack of multitasking. I often want to copy/paste from the browser to Colornote or an email but on iOS you have to close each app before going to the other one. There are no background apps either, for instance I use a GPS logger while I am taking photos on my DSLR so I can geotag them later and it does it quietly while I can look at maps etc. without closing it.
This is factually wrong, as these things are all easily done in iOS devices.
9) Poor screen. The iPad 2 screen is only 1024x768, too small for web browsing IMHO. I upgraded my old Thinkpad laptop because the screen was only 1024 pixels wide and would never want to go back to anything under 1280 now. My 12.5" Let's Note is 1400 pixels which seems to be about the right DPI.
I thought we were comparing iOS to Android here. Nice strawman.
10) Expensive accessories and peripherals. Apple charges silly money and seem to be keeping official 3rd party prices high too. You can get knock-off stuff but it tends to be crap, where as on Android I can use generic but good quality peripherals costing 1/10th as much as the iPad ones.
You can buy peripherals for Android devices now? The wonders never cease.
11) Page display in the browser. Android has reformatted pages since day one to make them readable on a phone screen, but iOS doesn't seem to do it. OK, not strictly tablet related.
This is a good thing for about 10% of the web pages the people typically view.
Yeah, the parent post overstated the sour points of Android, but your reply was an even worse exaggeration going the other way. The +5 insightful is definitely not warranted.
People who can't be civil in a simple Slashdot discussion are the real joke.
Apple is exactly like Intel (no wonder they hooked up), in their belief that only "the paranoid survive". Apple rightly believes it needs to use every available legal tool at its disposal for the longer term survival of the company. That's the only way to survive in Silicon Valley in the long run.
I thought about something like this, but discarded it because it seems like it would be too advantageous towards larger corporations, that can afford big upfront fees in terms of numerous patent applications, but that smaller businesses and individuals would find daunting. I believe a good solution here would not discourage anyone from filing, just discourage them from being lazy in terms of prior art research.
Granted, at the end of the day, it's the same thing in practical terms... i.e. you are paying more lawyer fees because they have to spend more time doing more research. But at least this kind of cost scales with the breadth of the patent application in question. If it is a broader patent request, then there should be more research required.
You don't have to be in the "freakish cult" to realize the fault of this lies entirely on the US Patent Office, and, by extension, the US Congress and the White House.
They set up the system, and there's one good way to play it, following normal rules of game theory. Apple is better than most companies at understanding that game theory principle, is all.
Just to follow up, a few ideas that I wish Congress would consider...
#1 Force more patent application appeals into arbitration, and away from the court system. Make the applicant pay for the cost of the arbitrator.
#2 Change the accounting model. Proceeds from granted patent applications should NOT count as revenue towards the patent office and its continued operations, but should directly go into the US treasury.
#3 Provide a formal process for taking into account newly found prior art for patents already granted, including an arbitration process that has the power to revoke such patent. The arbitrator should show some deference to the granted patent, of course, and the cost of such a process should fall squarely on whichever entity is trying to get the patent erased from existence. This would, however, provide us all a way to quantify how well all the attorneys and lawyers involved in a patent application are doing: how many times have they had a patent revoked due to lazy research and missing prior art?
Our US Patent Office is economically incentivized to approve patent applications, regardless of their merits. If a patent review officer approves a patent application, that means revenue rolling into the institution as the patent is granted and registered. If the patent application is denied, that means outgoing $ as the applicant may litigate the matter and/or appeal.
If our "forward"-thinking Congress really wants to do something about patent reform, they should change the economic model of our patent office, such that the funding of the office is neutral in regards to whether patent applications are approved or denied.
I tried to set up a gmail account for my daughter, but ran into the COPPA thing, got denied, etc. Shrug.
Then we went to Yahoo, and they do manage to provide this service for youngsters. She seems pretty happy with the service so far, and the hurdle to move to gmail later on is pretty large now, I suppose. Score one for Yahoo.
Slashdot Android fans are so eager to prove that their platform is obviously superior to the iOS platform.
Yet an obvious PR shill article/summary like this one attracts over 500 comments, most of them smacking of way too much defensiveness.
Hint: your platform has won when you can simply roll your eyes at a PR shill and move on, without even feeling the compulsion to comment on it. No serious Apple fan is going to come to the defense of this one, so just who are you arguing with, or trying to convince, anyways?
This news, more than anything else, makes me question again the wisdom of Google purchasing Motorola (Mobility). Either Motorola performs well, and shows up in stories like this (thereby irritating Google's Android OEM partners), or Motorola underwhelms, making most of those billions of dollars as a patent investment only (waaay too much money for that, even in today's litigious environment).
Developer? Somebody who actually *contributes* something? Well, the APIs for both platforms are both sufficiently open and well documented. In other words, troll somewhere else please.
It's 'cool' to have a useful computing product, especially when it does what I want it to do, when I want it.
Uncool, is to throw around the "walled garden" meme with abandon, without even understanding the concept or really knowing how poorly it fits the Apple product environment, in reality.
Re:What he took away is more precious than given
on
Steve Jobs Dead At 56
·
· Score: 1
Apple is not open?
Their APIs are documented well enough.
The submission guidelines for iOS Apps are spelled out clearly enough, and seem plenty reasonable (even if they weren't at the start). The lack of adult content is the only thing that even remotely stands out.
Apple's contributions back to the open source community are quite extensive, and their support of HTML5 is as strong as that of any other company, regardless of the motives behind it.
I say, if you are going to slam Apple as not open, you should provide some evidence of that, because it is far from accepted wisdom. In fact, I think you are flat out wrong.
Your implication here, a wrong one, is that anyone who mods you down is doing so out of emotional or irrational reasons.
But the reality is, your view on this matter is much narrower than you believe it is, and you have a distorted view of Apple's history and product philosophy, which merits, objectively, why your post should be modded down.
Kind of true, but the statement is also accurate and intended to spur some self-reflection on the part of some of the posters here. I would characterize my post, in entirety, as a lament, not a trollish critique.
I think it's worse now. People, back then, came here in large numbers; and a large enough portion of them used the moderation system to good effect. A +5 insightful post truly was insightful, for example. That does not really happen any more, and I think that's why slashdot readership fell off a cliff, and why Taco ultimately left.
Slashdot Mirror
I always check this before downloading anything, ignoring anything with particular low scores. And, just like Amazon, I am more willing to buy stuff if there are numerous objective positive reviews posted.
This article fails to prove anything particularly special about mobile apps versus any other kind of market.
And yet there are plenty of good paid apps, I even bought some of them. Apps that can never exist for iOS. You literally don't know what you are missing.
I doubt many companies are throwing a lot of development dollars at creating Android-only apps. Currently Android Marketplace doesn't even make as much $ as corresponding RIM and Microsoft mobile app stores. Indeed, I fully expect Amazon's App Store to supercede and eventually dominate the Android app sales, simply because Amazon knows a thing or two about retail.
Okay... Well, take a look at the web sites of some manufacturers like Samsung, ASUS and HTC. They have plenty of accessories available.
The fact that I have to go to the manufacturer's web site kinda proves my point about THIRD party peripherals.
I'm afraid that the magic Apple sauce can't change the laws of physics.
And that's why I granted you the win. Learn2read.
LOL. Apple actually convinced you of that... Please explain, I could do with a good laugh.
Apple didn't convince me of this. Nintendo, Sony, and Panasonic did.
It's a giant turd on a scale that crapware like Real Player and Windows Media Player can only dream of.
Your long diatribe proves my point... you're irrational here. Don't want all those Apple tentacles growing on your system? Simply click "no" when prompted. You just want iTunes for minimal file I/O and nothing more? Simply click "no" when prompted. It isn't that hard, really.
Have you seen those "iPad Arcade" things that seem to be popular at the moment?
If those "iPad Arcade" things were actually popular, I would have noticed by now. Let's face it, this functionality is not in demand right now, for mobile devices. That may change, and, if so, I expect Apple would more directly address it in a software patch. I kind of hope that Bluetooth 4.0 is the dominant means to do this kind of thing anyways.
Oh really? Show me a link to this magical app that does all that stuff.
copy-and-paste to clipboard works brainlessly simple. Various music/GPS apps on iOS have background utility, and can easily be accessed in the multitasking bar. "Learn to Google" was your phrase, I believe.
We are, and my point is with iOS you have no choice, it's a 1024 pixel screen or nothing.
I initially misread your post, thought you were comparing an iPad to a Thinkpad. Anyways, it's fair to say most Android devices (or even a majority of Android tablets) are not exceeding 1024 pixels, even if some at the top end are.
Saves all that pointless zooming and scrolling you have to do on iOS.
For a web page with a little text but a lot of other content, you don't want the brower to be reformatting anything. And for a web page that is mostly text, Apple's Safari Reader mode is superior to reformatting approach anyways. (Also, in the case of Slashdot, it already has a mobile-native site that obviates the need for any of this regardless.) I am "pinching and zooming" a lot less on my iPhone than you seem to think I am.
I'm at least acknowledging your stronger points. You, in return, are trolling hard here. At least be fair.
1) Hardware update support sucks!
Nice try, but you'll have to work a lot harder to convince Slashdotters that the average upgrade experience on Android is at par or better than the average experience on Apple devices. Even with Samsung devices, you are still largely at the mercy of the cellular provider for Android updates.
2) The apps are lacking on Android
It's the walled garden filter on one side versus making no money (and thus no financial incentive to develop anything) on the other. A push at best.
3) Hardware software compatibility.
This comment has merit but is now dated with the release of iOS 5.0. And the last part of your comment complaining about peripherals is laughable... at least Apple devices have 3rd party peripherals to be compatible (or not) with in the first place.
4) The hardware is sub-standard by most, not all vendors in comparison to Apple.
Now you're just trolling mindlessly. Top tier Android devices are on par with Apple in hardware quality, the rest significantly inferior.
5) No user changeable battery. I push my phone quite hard and although battery life is better than what my friend's iPhone seems to get eventually that battery will wear out, and I want to be able to change it.
A sorta valid criticism, except that the battery in the iPhone has high quality and most evidence shows that it is plenty good over the typical length of ownership of a smartphone. I'll grant you the win regardless.
6) No SD card, and I need iTunes just to access the damn thing. The amount Apple charges for an extra 16GB is outrageous, more than I can get a 64GB SD card for.
Missing an SD card slot is a blessing in disguise, in my opinion. It WOULD be nice to have other means other than iTunes, though, to access your data from a PC or Mac. Although, on the other hand, your disgust for iTunes goes well into irrationality, as it is not half as unusable as most Slashdotters seem to suggest.
7) No USB host support, I can plug any random USB gamepad into the Transformer and it just works.
This is a significant letdown for you and the other 5 people yearning for this functionality, agreed.
8) Lack of multitasking. I often want to copy/paste from the browser to Colornote or an email but on iOS you have to close each app before going to the other one. There are no background apps either, for instance I use a GPS logger while I am taking photos on my DSLR so I can geotag them later and it does it quietly while I can look at maps etc. without closing it.
This is factually wrong, as these things are all easily done in iOS devices.
9) Poor screen. The iPad 2 screen is only 1024x768, too small for web browsing IMHO. I upgraded my old Thinkpad laptop because the screen was only 1024 pixels wide and would never want to go back to anything under 1280 now. My 12.5" Let's Note is 1400 pixels which seems to be about the right DPI.
I thought we were comparing iOS to Android here. Nice strawman.
10) Expensive accessories and peripherals. Apple charges silly money and seem to be keeping official 3rd party prices high too. You can get knock-off stuff but it tends to be crap, where as on Android I can use generic but good quality peripherals costing 1/10th as much as the iPad ones.
You can buy peripherals for Android devices now? The wonders never cease.
11) Page display in the browser. Android has reformatted pages since day one to make them readable on a phone screen, but iOS doesn't seem to do it. OK, not strictly tablet related.
This is a good thing for about 10% of the web pages the people typically view.
Yeah, the parent post overstated the sour points of Android, but your reply was an even worse exaggeration going the other way. The +5 insightful is definitely not warranted.
Apple is exactly like Intel (no wonder they hooked up), in their belief that only "the paranoid survive". Apple rightly believes it needs to use every available legal tool at its disposal for the longer term survival of the company. That's the only way to survive in Silicon Valley in the long run.
Google delivers technologies. Apple delivers products.
The US Patent system really is the new root of all that is evil. FTFY
Granted, at the end of the day, it's the same thing in practical terms... i.e. you are paying more lawyer fees because they have to spend more time doing more research. But at least this kind of cost scales with the breadth of the patent application in question. If it is a broader patent request, then there should be more research required.
They set up the system, and there's one good way to play it, following normal rules of game theory. Apple is better than most companies at understanding that game theory principle, is all.
#1 Force more patent application appeals into arbitration, and away from the court system. Make the applicant pay for the cost of the arbitrator.
#2 Change the accounting model. Proceeds from granted patent applications should NOT count as revenue towards the patent office and its continued operations, but should directly go into the US treasury.
#3 Provide a formal process for taking into account newly found prior art for patents already granted, including an arbitration process that has the power to revoke such patent. The arbitrator should show some deference to the granted patent, of course, and the cost of such a process should fall squarely on whichever entity is trying to get the patent erased from existence. This would, however, provide us all a way to quantify how well all the attorneys and lawyers involved in a patent application are doing: how many times have they had a patent revoked due to lazy research and missing prior art?
If our "forward"-thinking Congress really wants to do something about patent reform, they should change the economic model of our patent office, such that the funding of the office is neutral in regards to whether patent applications are approved or denied.
Then we went to Yahoo, and they do manage to provide this service for youngsters. She seems pretty happy with the service so far, and the hurdle to move to gmail later on is pretty large now, I suppose. Score one for Yahoo.
And, to get that level of service, they are forced to charge each customer on average $100 a month with few phone subsidies.
We all know this company would attract few customers and would go out of business quickly. We only have ourselves as consumers to blame, really.
Yet an obvious PR shill article/summary like this one attracts over 500 comments, most of them smacking of way too much defensiveness.
Hint: your platform has won when you can simply roll your eyes at a PR shill and move on, without even feeling the compulsion to comment on it. No serious Apple fan is going to come to the defense of this one, so just who are you arguing with, or trying to convince, anyways?
This news, more than anything else, makes me question again the wisdom of Google purchasing Motorola (Mobility). Either Motorola performs well, and shows up in stories like this (thereby irritating Google's Android OEM partners), or Motorola underwhelms, making most of those billions of dollars as a patent investment only (waaay too much money for that, even in today's litigious environment).
Developer? Somebody who actually *contributes* something? Well, the APIs for both platforms are both sufficiently open and well documented. In other words, troll somewhere else please.
Congrats, you've just unwittingly proven the parent's case.
Notice that most of that hate/bashing comes from Slashdot users with very large UIDs. Not a coincidence.
Am I being controlled? Oh noes!
His statement about not being controlled is absolutely correct, and you are too shallow to even recognize his point.
Yup, you sure are a militant hater.
Uncool, is to throw around the "walled garden" meme with abandon, without even understanding the concept or really knowing how poorly it fits the Apple product environment, in reality.
Their APIs are documented well enough.
The submission guidelines for iOS Apps are spelled out clearly enough, and seem plenty reasonable (even if they weren't at the start). The lack of adult content is the only thing that even remotely stands out.
Apple's contributions back to the open source community are quite extensive, and their support of HTML5 is as strong as that of any other company, regardless of the motives behind it.
I say, if you are going to slam Apple as not open, you should provide some evidence of that, because it is far from accepted wisdom. In fact, I think you are flat out wrong.
Please feel free to mod me down.
Your implication here, a wrong one, is that anyone who mods you down is doing so out of emotional or irrational reasons.
But the reality is, your view on this matter is much narrower than you believe it is, and you have a distorted view of Apple's history and product philosophy, which merits, objectively, why your post should be modded down.
Kind of true, but the statement is also accurate and intended to spur some self-reflection on the part of some of the posters here. I would characterize my post, in entirety, as a lament, not a trollish critique.
I think it's worse now. People, back then, came here in large numbers; and a large enough portion of them used the moderation system to good effect. A +5 insightful post truly was insightful, for example. That does not really happen any more, and I think that's why slashdot readership fell off a cliff, and why Taco ultimately left.