I'm an Apple fanboy but even I can see through my Apple coloured glasses and recognize that this is entirely slanted. Comparing phones made by Apple (one manufacturer) and RIM (one manufacturer) to Android phones (how many manufacturers?...) is entirely unfair. I'd like to see how HTC does. How about Samsung. Compare manufacturers to manufacturers. Apples to apples, if you pardon the pun. The might as well compare Apple's and RIM's phones to American automobiles for all the value the information provides...
imho, netbooks died when their price went above $300. The entire point of a netbook is it's a computer that is powerful enough to do email, web browsing, word processing and other simple tasks. It's not designed to do video gaming; it's not designed to splice together your home movie; it's not designed to compose a masterpiece of artwork in Photoshop. It's designed to be functional for basic day-to-day use as cheaply as possible. Computer makers, however, got it in their heads that people want teh big numberz!! They want a more powerful processor and bigger screen and... oh, wait. That's not a netbook any more. It's an underpowered laptop.
A laptop is one thing and it fills a need. A netbook, when built properly, is another thing and fills a separate need. The key thing that separates them is price (and thus performance). In general, if a netbook is priced over $300, it isn't a netbook - it's now an underpowered laptop.
What killed the netbook? Computer makers suddenly thinking people wanted the netbook to be more than it is and pushing the price above $300.
(As a side note, yet, Microsoft pushing XP onto netbooks, and thus pushing the system requirements up thereby pushing the price up, certainly played a part in it.)
People claiming that tablets (namely the iPad) killed the netbook are failing to realize that the netbook was dead before the iPad came along...
I'll stick with Videotron, for two main reasons. First, of the major players, they actually do a pretty damn decent job of recognizing that their customers are important (as but one of many examples, they've recently increased the bandwidth caps on most of their high speed internet options). Second, and more importantly, I believe the examples you listed all lease last-mile access from Bell and I really don't feel like giving Bell one cent of my money, even if it is indirectly. Bell (followed closely by Rogers) are 100% what is wrong with the telecommunications industry in Canada, in every way possible, and I don't want to support them at all. So, yeah - Videotron for me.
Canada has some horrendous data caps from it's major ISPs. From the numbers I've heard, Americans have almost 10x the bandwidth allowance that most Canadians have. For online services (cloud, netflix, etc.), this is a major concern. While I'm looking forward to iCloud, I will be closely monitoring my bandwidth for the first little bit to make sure I don't go over and, if I do, I'll be figuring out what service I use needs to get cut and, quite frankly, I'd rather the ISPs just offer better service than forcing me to not use what's available...
...you guys sound like the sort of vengeful, soulless libertarians who would shoot a man rather than let him walk away with your TV; the kind of people who want all crimes prosecuted to the 'fullest extent of the law', who cares the methods and damn the financial, social, or philosophical cost.
Sorry, but what part of my reply was anything along the lines of what you accuse me of?
Unfortunately, it didn't matter if they lost - the criminals and anarchists were going to start their crap win or lose (Montreal suffered it in their last Stanley Cup win, Vancouver suffered it and lost). As you said, the large crowd was all they needed - win or lose mattered not one bit.
Coles Notes: 150 people injured, some quite seriously. Millions of dollars in damage, which tax payers and insurance payers (translation: the populace - you know, the people who are working together now to help find the criminals) will have to pay for. Perpetrated not by a crowd going insane over the angst of a lost hockey game but by anarchists and professional criminals taking advantage of a large crowd of people which could provide cover for their activities while blame was placed on the hockey fans rather than the criminals perpetrating the crimes.
Forgive me if I disagree with you, strongly, and am very happy to see initiatives like this to catch the criminals and happier still to know that the hockey fans often stepped in to try to hold back the criminals from their desired goals.
The previous owner used it for a virtually identical service as what Apple will be offering, just not on the same scope and magnitude. Neither, however, used it for VOIP services, which is what iCloud Communications' business is.
Doing a search for an iCloud trademark turns up 13 hits, 11 of which are from Apple, none of which are from iCloud Communications. It's a bit harder to claim trademark infringement when you don't have a registered trademark (harder, not impossible). What makes it even harder is Apple bought the icloud.com domain, which existed and did business prior to the announcement and iCloud Communications didn't sue the previous owners for trademark infringement. Failing to defend your trademarks weakens your ownership of it (*), which is a big difference between trademarks and copyrights (a difference many people aren't aware of).
Sorry, but not having a registered trademark and failing to defend the mark as it was previously used for a near-identical business endeavour dramatically weakens their case.
* This is why, regardless of what you may think of the validity of the claim, companies sometimes sue for trademark infringement - they either have to defend their trademark or risk losing it entirely.
He's motivated by money? Well, yeah, but he's also right and I imagine the school district will be cutting another cheque. His motivation for filing the suit doesn't matter - all that matters is whether or not he's right and, as has been made clear, odds are very good that he is.
I love this whole discussion of Apple "winning" the tablet market or "losing" the smartphone market (or flip it for Android if you prefer this comment from that point of view). It's one of the dumbest choice of words for a discussion I've ever seen because it is utterly inaccurate. To put it simply, if Apple is "losing" any battle for smartphones, then I want to be a loser like Apple. They sell the most popular smartphone, by a country mile; they are the most profitable technology company in the world, by an enormous margin; they are one of the largest and most successful companies in the world, thanks to the many factors, first and foremost among them being the iPhone. If that's any sort of measure of "losing" then I'd be happy to "lose" like that.
Of course, the same can be said, in different way, about Android.
Here's the deal - the two companies are conducting business with different measurements of success. While both, in the grand scheme, are after profit (they're corporations, after all), in the specific sense, iOS and iPhone (Apple) is after profit while Android (Google) is after market (in an effort to help Google secure its search dominance). So long as each platform is accomplishing those goals, they are both winning.
More importantly (and here's the best part), since they are both measuring their success by different metrics, if both are winning (as I believe they both are), neither is losing (as I believe both are not) and, best of all, consumers are the ultimate winners. With Google's efforts to expand their market, they're making Android pretty slick, forcing Apple to keep pace with iOS while Android headset/tablet makers are pushing the boundaries with hardware, similarly forcing Apple to keep pace with their iPhone. And the reverse is true, forcing Google and Android headset/tablet makers to excel. Consumers are winning with a wonderful selection of both software and hardware all the while Apple is bringing in record profits while Google is expanding their market presence thereby protecting Google as a search engine.
There's a whole lot of winning going on and I see very little losing anywhere except when you add RIM, Microsoft, or Nokia to the discussion...
And I'd rather take my chances with someone who _might_ sell me out to American corporate interests than stick with someone who I _KNOW_ will _CONTINUE_ screwing me over to American corporate interests (among the many, many other offenses he's committed during his time as PM).
If nobody that should matter to a politician (i.e. the people possibly electing him) wants it, who does he actually represent? The people? Obviously, he does not.
There-in lies my biggest issue with the whole thing. Not only are the politicians who are pushing for this garbage selling out Canadians to corporate interests, they can't even be bothered to sell us out to _CANADIAN_ corporations. They're selling us out to corporate America. It's so profoundly disgusting that it boils my blood. These... people can't even be bothered to be patriotic while the screw us over...
Seriously, if the Conservatives win a majority in this coming election, I think I would cry...
Getting less bad with each iteration??? Did you even read a summary of the most recent bill proposal? It gave consumers all kinds of rights and, in the same instant, took them away "if there was DRM". In other words, consumers would have had ZERO rights over content they bought. None. Zero. Zip. Zilch.
Sorry for trying to drill the point home but it's really that serious - the most recent bill proposal absolutely threw out any pretense of consumers having any rights, what-so-ever. They disguised how bad the bill was by describing all the rights that consumers had so it felt good but, in every instance, they immediately took those rights away if DRM was present (it wouldn't have had to be strong DRM - _ANY_ DRM would have stripped away all the consumer's rights).
Seriously, had that bill passed, we wouldn't have been able to legally record a show with a VCR, rip a CD, own an mp3 player (since it wouldn't have been legal to actually play anything...). It was disgusting.
Other than it being an Apple product, my biggest issue with it is the price -which is largely a function of it being an Apple product...
I find that statement absolutely hysterical. People expected the iPad to launch with a just-below-$1000 price tag. It came out at half that yet people are still saying "too expensive"? Sorry, but I'm going to have to view that statement as bogus and write it off to your admitted dislike of Apple. Until I see viable, serious, comparable products at a lower price (which I most certainly have not yet seen...), I'll consider their price to be pretty damn good for what they're selling. Expensive, yes, but most certainly not over-priced.
The number of people required to run a datacenter 24/7 is a fraction of those required to run a bookstore, much less the supply chain that feeds the bookstore.
How many people does it take to make a datacenter?
Yes, I realize that's not a long term job, but it's a job that needs to be done.
People often forget that there are jobs that need to be done - jobs that will always need to be done - jobs that will never be moved overseas. Plumbers. Electricians. Even butchers. Some of them might not be glamorous but they are important and they will always be needed.
I've worked in the publishing industry. I have no sympathy for people who are holding on to the past with both hands, fiercely fighting for things to not change. Things change over time. Adapt. Evolve. Move forward. If you fail to do so, you'll be left behind and forgotten. Blaming the iPad or the internet or anything of the sort is foolish. Times change - find the new marketable product (hint: it's probably digital), make that, and profit.
Evolve or get out of the way for those who are willing to move into the future.
There's a significant difference between an amusing and obviously fictitious commercial where an actor claims to be an inanimate object and a commercial where people claim to be consumers of a product giving their opinion and turn out to not, in fact, be consumers of the product. Then again, I'd have thought that was obvious.
To quote a tweet by George Stroumboulopoulos (and, as a Canadian, I know you know who that is):
"Why complain about election costs? We all know that $$ wasn't going to our pockets, creating jobs or paying down the deficit"
The expense really is irrelevant. The money wasn't ear-marked to help pay teachers or nurses or firefighters more money. It wasn't going to improve the conditions of roads and bridges. That money being spent on the election pretty much as zero effect on the country other than providing us with the opportunity to get the conservatives out of power and change how money is being spent that way.
I disagree. This is an admission of defeat. This move will drain any and all remaining motivation from developers to develop native BB apps. Why develop an app for BB (and iOS and Android) when you can just focus your effort on iOS and Android? Yes, it's good for Android, which I'm sure many people here will love, but it pretty much spells the death of BB as an OS - desire to develop apps for BB will vanish which will lead to it's demise.
Now, if Blackberry intends on becoming just a hardware company, than this move helps them in that effort but I suspect that's not their desire...
But basically people are trying to make money off these apps, which is a huge problem...
People are trying to make money off their work? Those bastards!!
Ok, I understand the point he was trying to make and I agree with it - Smurf's Village takes advantage of children to make much more money than is considered "the norm" for the industry but to complain that people are trying to make money off of an app is an utterly stupid complaint.
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I'm an Apple fanboy but even I can see through my Apple coloured glasses and recognize that this is entirely slanted. Comparing phones made by Apple (one manufacturer) and RIM (one manufacturer) to Android phones (how many manufacturers?...) is entirely unfair. I'd like to see how HTC does. How about Samsung. Compare manufacturers to manufacturers. Apples to apples, if you pardon the pun. The might as well compare Apple's and RIM's phones to American automobiles for all the value the information provides...
Quick note - my commentary about price is Canadian dollars. Adjust prices appropriately for your local region. :)
imho, netbooks died when their price went above $300. The entire point of a netbook is it's a computer that is powerful enough to do email, web browsing, word processing and other simple tasks. It's not designed to do video gaming; it's not designed to splice together your home movie; it's not designed to compose a masterpiece of artwork in Photoshop. It's designed to be functional for basic day-to-day use as cheaply as possible. Computer makers, however, got it in their heads that people want teh big numberz!! They want a more powerful processor and bigger screen and ... oh, wait. That's not a netbook any more. It's an underpowered laptop.
A laptop is one thing and it fills a need. A netbook, when built properly, is another thing and fills a separate need. The key thing that separates them is price (and thus performance). In general, if a netbook is priced over $300, it isn't a netbook - it's now an underpowered laptop.
What killed the netbook? Computer makers suddenly thinking people wanted the netbook to be more than it is and pushing the price above $300.
(As a side note, yet, Microsoft pushing XP onto netbooks, and thus pushing the system requirements up thereby pushing the price up, certainly played a part in it.)
People claiming that tablets (namely the iPad) killed the netbook are failing to realize that the netbook was dead before the iPad came along...
Now make a RegularCar, that I can buy for 75k...
Can I live in your world where "regular car" equals 75k? Jebus...
I'll stick with Videotron, for two main reasons. First, of the major players, they actually do a pretty damn decent job of recognizing that their customers are important (as but one of many examples, they've recently increased the bandwidth caps on most of their high speed internet options). Second, and more importantly, I believe the examples you listed all lease last-mile access from Bell and I really don't feel like giving Bell one cent of my money, even if it is indirectly. Bell (followed closely by Rogers) are 100% what is wrong with the telecommunications industry in Canada, in every way possible, and I don't want to support them at all. So, yeah - Videotron for me.
Canada has some horrendous data caps from it's major ISPs. From the numbers I've heard, Americans have almost 10x the bandwidth allowance that most Canadians have. For online services (cloud, netflix, etc.), this is a major concern. While I'm looking forward to iCloud, I will be closely monitoring my bandwidth for the first little bit to make sure I don't go over and, if I do, I'll be figuring out what service I use needs to get cut and, quite frankly, I'd rather the ISPs just offer better service than forcing me to not use what's available...
...you guys sound like the sort of vengeful, soulless libertarians who would shoot a man rather than let him walk away with your TV; the kind of people who want all crimes prosecuted to the 'fullest extent of the law', who cares the methods and damn the financial, social, or philosophical cost.
Sorry, but what part of my reply was anything along the lines of what you accuse me of?
Unfortunately, it didn't matter if they lost - the criminals and anarchists were going to start their crap win or lose (Montreal suffered it in their last Stanley Cup win, Vancouver suffered it and lost). As you said, the large crowd was all they needed - win or lose mattered not one bit.
Before you comment, perhaps you'd like to do some research and educate yourself. Here: http://tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=369127
Coles Notes: 150 people injured, some quite seriously. Millions of dollars in damage, which tax payers and insurance payers (translation: the populace - you know, the people who are working together now to help find the criminals) will have to pay for. Perpetrated not by a crowd going insane over the angst of a lost hockey game but by anarchists and professional criminals taking advantage of a large crowd of people which could provide cover for their activities while blame was placed on the hockey fans rather than the criminals perpetrating the crimes.
Forgive me if I disagree with you, strongly, and am very happy to see initiatives like this to catch the criminals and happier still to know that the hockey fans often stepped in to try to hold back the criminals from their desired goals.
The previous owner used it for a virtually identical service as what Apple will be offering, just not on the same scope and magnitude. Neither, however, used it for VOIP services, which is what iCloud Communications' business is.
Doing a search for an iCloud trademark turns up 13 hits, 11 of which are from Apple, none of which are from iCloud Communications. It's a bit harder to claim trademark infringement when you don't have a registered trademark (harder, not impossible). What makes it even harder is Apple bought the icloud.com domain, which existed and did business prior to the announcement and iCloud Communications didn't sue the previous owners for trademark infringement. Failing to defend your trademarks weakens your ownership of it (*), which is a big difference between trademarks and copyrights (a difference many people aren't aware of).
Sorry, but not having a registered trademark and failing to defend the mark as it was previously used for a near-identical business endeavour dramatically weakens their case.
* This is why, regardless of what you may think of the validity of the claim, companies sometimes sue for trademark infringement - they either have to defend their trademark or risk losing it entirely.
He's motivated by money? Well, yeah, but he's also right and I imagine the school district will be cutting another cheque. His motivation for filing the suit doesn't matter - all that matters is whether or not he's right and, as has been made clear, odds are very good that he is.
I love this whole discussion of Apple "winning" the tablet market or "losing" the smartphone market (or flip it for Android if you prefer this comment from that point of view). It's one of the dumbest choice of words for a discussion I've ever seen because it is utterly inaccurate. To put it simply, if Apple is "losing" any battle for smartphones, then I want to be a loser like Apple. They sell the most popular smartphone, by a country mile; they are the most profitable technology company in the world, by an enormous margin; they are one of the largest and most successful companies in the world, thanks to the many factors, first and foremost among them being the iPhone. If that's any sort of measure of "losing" then I'd be happy to "lose" like that.
Of course, the same can be said, in different way, about Android.
Here's the deal - the two companies are conducting business with different measurements of success. While both, in the grand scheme, are after profit (they're corporations, after all), in the specific sense, iOS and iPhone (Apple) is after profit while Android (Google) is after market (in an effort to help Google secure its search dominance). So long as each platform is accomplishing those goals, they are both winning.
More importantly (and here's the best part), since they are both measuring their success by different metrics, if both are winning (as I believe they both are), neither is losing (as I believe both are not) and, best of all, consumers are the ultimate winners. With Google's efforts to expand their market, they're making Android pretty slick, forcing Apple to keep pace with iOS while Android headset/tablet makers are pushing the boundaries with hardware, similarly forcing Apple to keep pace with their iPhone. And the reverse is true, forcing Google and Android headset/tablet makers to excel. Consumers are winning with a wonderful selection of both software and hardware all the while Apple is bringing in record profits while Google is expanding their market presence thereby protecting Google as a search engine.
There's a whole lot of winning going on and I see very little losing anywhere except when you add RIM, Microsoft, or Nokia to the discussion...
And I'd rather take my chances with someone who _might_ sell me out to American corporate interests than stick with someone who I _KNOW_ will _CONTINUE_ screwing me over to American corporate interests (among the many, many other offenses he's committed during his time as PM).
If nobody that should matter to a politician (i.e. the people possibly electing him) wants it, who does he actually represent? The people? Obviously, he does not.
There-in lies my biggest issue with the whole thing. Not only are the politicians who are pushing for this garbage selling out Canadians to corporate interests, they can't even be bothered to sell us out to _CANADIAN_ corporations. They're selling us out to corporate America. It's so profoundly disgusting that it boils my blood. These ... people can't even be bothered to be patriotic while the screw us over...
Seriously, if the Conservatives win a majority in this coming election, I think I would cry...
Getting less bad with each iteration??? Did you even read a summary of the most recent bill proposal? It gave consumers all kinds of rights and, in the same instant, took them away "if there was DRM". In other words, consumers would have had ZERO rights over content they bought. None. Zero. Zip. Zilch.
Sorry for trying to drill the point home but it's really that serious - the most recent bill proposal absolutely threw out any pretense of consumers having any rights, what-so-ever. They disguised how bad the bill was by describing all the rights that consumers had so it felt good but, in every instance, they immediately took those rights away if DRM was present (it wouldn't have had to be strong DRM - _ANY_ DRM would have stripped away all the consumer's rights).
Seriously, had that bill passed, we wouldn't have been able to legally record a show with a VCR, rip a CD, own an mp3 player (since it wouldn't have been legal to actually play anything...). It was disgusting.
Lots of misinformation around here sometimes.
Unfortunately, your use of the word "sometimes" was very generous and kind. And inaccurate...
Other than it being an Apple product, my biggest issue with it is the price -which is largely a function of it being an Apple product...
I find that statement absolutely hysterical. People expected the iPad to launch with a just-below-$1000 price tag. It came out at half that yet people are still saying "too expensive"? Sorry, but I'm going to have to view that statement as bogus and write it off to your admitted dislike of Apple. Until I see viable, serious, comparable products at a lower price (which I most certainly have not yet seen...), I'll consider their price to be pretty damn good for what they're selling. Expensive, yes, but most certainly not over-priced.
WTF is wrong with our patent system?
Everything.
The number of people required to run a datacenter 24/7 is a fraction of those required to run a bookstore, much less the supply chain that feeds the bookstore.
How many people does it take to make a datacenter?
Yes, I realize that's not a long term job, but it's a job that needs to be done.
People often forget that there are jobs that need to be done - jobs that will always need to be done - jobs that will never be moved overseas. Plumbers. Electricians. Even butchers. Some of them might not be glamorous but they are important and they will always be needed.
And they'll never be shipped overseas.
I've worked in the publishing industry. I have no sympathy for people who are holding on to the past with both hands, fiercely fighting for things to not change. Things change over time. Adapt. Evolve. Move forward. If you fail to do so, you'll be left behind and forgotten. Blaming the iPad or the internet or anything of the sort is foolish. Times change - find the new marketable product (hint: it's probably digital), make that, and profit.
Evolve or get out of the way for those who are willing to move into the future.
There's a significant difference between an amusing and obviously fictitious commercial where an actor claims to be an inanimate object and a commercial where people claim to be consumers of a product giving their opinion and turn out to not, in fact, be consumers of the product. Then again, I'd have thought that was obvious.
"Why complain about election costs? We all know that $$ wasn't going to our pockets, creating jobs or paying down the deficit"
The expense really is irrelevant. The money wasn't ear-marked to help pay teachers or nurses or firefighters more money. It wasn't going to improve the conditions of roads and bridges. That money being spent on the election pretty much as zero effect on the country other than providing us with the opportunity to get the conservatives out of power and change how money is being spent that way.
I disagree. This is an admission of defeat. This move will drain any and all remaining motivation from developers to develop native BB apps. Why develop an app for BB (and iOS and Android) when you can just focus your effort on iOS and Android? Yes, it's good for Android, which I'm sure many people here will love, but it pretty much spells the death of BB as an OS - desire to develop apps for BB will vanish which will lead to it's demise.
Now, if Blackberry intends on becoming just a hardware company, than this move helps them in that effort but I suspect that's not their desire...
But basically people are trying to make money off these apps, which is a huge problem...
People are trying to make money off their work? Those bastards!!
Ok, I understand the point he was trying to make and I agree with it - Smurf's Village takes advantage of children to make much more money than is considered "the norm" for the industry but to complain that people are trying to make money off of an app is an utterly stupid complaint.