Land is freaky cheap, compared to construction costs. However, you're comparing construction costs (without ongoing maintenance) to retail electricity pricing at residential levels. That could be more of an issue.
I was thinking along the same lines. iAds could greatly reduce the cost of Apple products. I imagine that Apple would still have their Ad-Free OS installed on computers selling for the same as the current prices. However, if someone chose to get the iAds pre-installed versions, the costs would be steeply discounted. I don't see how this is different from a cheap Dell shipping with a bunch of bloat-ware.
Exactly. And Apple is one of the fastest growing computer vendors right now because of the impression that they are, in fact, very different from a cheap Dell shipping with a bunch of bloatware. Why would they jeopardize that?
Not sure how it'd hurt apple to offer a free version of their operating system that is ad supported. I bet schools would even jump on this to start saving some money. Hell maybe Apple would cut them in on some fo the revenue for advertising to their captive teen audience.
It would hurt Apple in the same way that it would hurt Mercedes to offer a cheaper car with in-dash advertising. Apple is not going after the low-cost market, they're going after the quality-integrated market; minor cost-savings don't help them do that.
then they show numbers, that if we trust them, those numbers says that they build an antenna that is a little worse than the iPhone 3G*, that is not a better antenna.
Although to be fair, its an antenna that - when held a certain very specific and unusual way - is a little worse than the 3G, but when used in any other conceivable way is vastly superior. All in all, a pretty good step forward, as you might realize if you'd actually used both products for a significant amount of time..
I've got a Milestone (EU version of the Droid) and try as I might I can't make a single bar drop below the regular 3 bars (max 4) where I am right now. Looking at the signal level, the worst I can do is drop it to -93 dBm, when I'm basically enveloping the whole phone (minus front screen) with my somewhat sweaty palms.
Your phone uses 3 bars to display -93dBm? Seriously?
The iPhone has more attenuation when squeezed than most phones. It also performs better at very low signal strength than most phones. It also had a ridiculously stupid graphical bar interface (now made more sensible).
One thing that this also points to is a need to move away from dBm meters to S/N meters... just as light bulb manufacturers are slowly moving away from Watts towards Lumens.
Agreed. Not only that, but the iPhone 4 can connect calls in areas that the 3GS couldn't, and those calls are much more likely to drop - there are no statistics, naturally, of people who wanted to make a call and couldn't reach a tower. So it may not even be a sign of a problem.
As an early adopter, I can attest - the attenuation is real, but a squeezed iPhone 4 still performs (for me) at least as well as a delicately cradled iPhone 3GS. This is purely a media-driven issue.
With a decent gateway you don't even have to do that. You take your gateway credentials and the credit card information, and use them to create a unique storable key. The only thing you can do with that key is to move money between that one particular CC and your gateway account (refund, add'l charge, etc). Technically someone could steal it and either issue refunds or make additional charges, but they generally wouldn't because there's no incentive for them to do so. Far safer (and more PCI compliant) than retaining the CC number itself.
Merchants are lax with security because there's no reason not to be.
Not exactly the case... a merchant found to be in breach of their PCI standards (which you agree to when you set up a gateway account) can have their charge privileges suspended or denied. And a hotel who couldn't process Visa/MC/Amex/Disc cards wouldn't last very long at all. You can argue that there should be more sport-checks, but PCI auditing is already a very expensive process, especially for smaller companies (you can easily spend $50K+ on an audit at PCI level one).
Of course, Apple also pointed out in their release that if you weren't happy that you could return the phone to wherever you purchased it - anywhere - for a full refund of your purchase price and all related charges.
But why bring "facts" into this discussion? Do continue, please...
And again, in practice, you can (or at least I can) get a call to go through on the iPhone 4 in places where the other phones have already lost signal. After which point, while chatting, if you death-grip the phone, you may lose the call.
Steve Jobs' response is absurd at best, especially when the ads show the iPhone being held exactly how he says not to. Who DOESN'T hold a phone like that, except for headset users?
If you read the Anandtech review, you'll see that holding the phone normally, while it has an affect, has a much milder one (and one that's more in line with other phones). Also, even when held in the worst possible way, the 4 seems to have as good or better connectivity than the 3G did (although the #bars display is moderately misleading, since the 4 works better at 1 bar than the 3G did at >1 bar - similar to the light output between a 60W incandescent bulb vs a 30W CFL (which would be stupid-bright at half the power)).
No, seriously, who cares? This is a process designed to save files that are then transferred through SneakerNet. While moderately large, at 80gb, they're not huge by modern standards. If you have a current solution that works, stick with it.
If, however, there are other constraints that are affecting you - transfer speed, decades-long retention on local media, security, etc, then by all means let us know. Until then, to use the obligatory car analogy, its as if you've said:
Due to the distance between my house and work, I currently use an automobile to go between the two locations and to perform various other services. Currently I use a Honda Accord. What would you suggest?
Agree with your points on RTMPE. As for full screen capabilities, check out http://jilion.com/sublime/video - very impressive, to my eyes at least. Overlayed controls, true fullscreen, etc, etc, all present and accounted for.
Of all companies, I'd expect Google to know that making bits uncopyable is not possible. Especially amusing since they cite RTMPE as an example of a useful feature, when RTMPE is broken and can easily be ignored by anything other than the official Flash player.
RTMPE is not broken at all.
Well, I don't know about everyone else, but your well-thought-out arguments certainly convinced me. RTMPE 4Ever!
"Cheap and Good Enough" is exactly what manufacturers like!
Oddly enough, that's exactly the same thing that I as a consumer go for. What's the most cost-effective way to purchase a product that meets my needs? If that solution exceeds my needs at the same time, that's a bonus, but not a requirement (if it had been, my needs would have been higher, and the previous solution wouldn't have met them).
Nowhere in that sentence does it imply "shoddy." Neither does it imply "gold plated." Just "good enough."
If only the military was sensitive enough to these things, and also wanted to make sure that private corporations didn't have to try to figure out when something like this happened, and chipped in enough extra money to cover these unexpected costs when someone died in combat (above and beyond the life insurance they would otherwise receive if they passed away peacefully on base).
Oh, wait, they do, and its $100,000 (tax-free IIRC). Its designed to cover these unpleasant situations. This is a time when we're already doing the right thing, but she wants Verizon to chip in and pay her phone subsidy for her as well.
The beauty of open source is not that you personally can check all of your installed apps to make sure none of them are doing anything evil (although that is a good thing). It's that there are thousands of eyes looking over that source code
Actually, I believe that you'll find that there are thousands of eyes belonging to people who are saying exactly what you are saying... which is why even obvious exploits have lived in massively used packages for months at a time.
After all, if you can't be bothered, why assume that anyone else can?
You have to pay for non-security bugfixes to Windows 2003 now, by buying a contract within 90 days of Jul 12, if you want support.
Which seems reasonable considering that the product came out 7 years ago, during which time there have been many free patches; also, a newer fully supported version was released 2 years ago. How long would you expect a company to maintain old versions of software for free?
I'm pretty impressed that they're still willing to support it for money, quite frankly.
That's very different than getting that information, "for free", with every request for an ad image. Adding the latency to query the ISP for the information before returning the ad would make the image load too slowly, and adding the API traffic would be pretty expensive in terms of open socket connections.
Exactly. And getting something like Flex working correctly in a touch environment -- or even "works at all" -- for the average business application, would seem to be a significant challenge when getting basic video playing to work effectively has proven to be quite difficult.
Right... but since most flash apps don't even play videos as expected by the masses, properly, with controls and everything, we're a looooooong way away from what most people think of as "real flash working."
BTW, not having things like "cursor mode" different than "zoom mode", while a little limiting to the true geek, is part of what makes Apple's designs accessible to the masses.
Rotta reckons, "There is a growing trend for online role-playing games to encourage negative behaviour, by rewarding violent and brutal activities within the online games."
Yes because Crocheting & Knitting RPGs would sell so well.
Have you never heard of Farmville? I'd say that with the right positioning, a virtual knitting game might be - well - no less unlikely than a virtual farming one.
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Land is freaky cheap, compared to construction costs. However, you're comparing construction costs (without ongoing maintenance) to retail electricity pricing at residential levels. That could be more of an issue.
I was thinking along the same lines. iAds could greatly reduce the cost of Apple products. I imagine that Apple would still have their Ad-Free OS installed on computers selling for the same as the current prices. However, if someone chose to get the iAds pre-installed versions, the costs would be steeply discounted. I don't see how this is different from a cheap Dell shipping with a bunch of bloat-ware.
Exactly. And Apple is one of the fastest growing computer vendors right now because of the impression that they are, in fact, very different from a cheap Dell shipping with a bunch of bloatware. Why would they jeopardize that?
Not sure how it'd hurt apple to offer a free version of their operating system that is ad supported. I bet schools would even jump on this to start saving some money. Hell maybe Apple would cut them in on some fo the revenue for advertising to their captive teen audience.
It would hurt Apple in the same way that it would hurt Mercedes to offer a cheaper car with in-dash advertising. Apple is not going after the low-cost market, they're going after the quality-integrated market; minor cost-savings don't help them do that.
This is actually the case, yes. If you're in a decent metropolitan area with an honest 5 bars, you can do whatever you want and you'll be fine.
I wonder if people could get a refund if the handset doesn't work as sold.
Sure can - you even get your upgradability eligibility back if you'd taken advantage of that offer from ATT.
What's the problem again?
then they show numbers, that if we trust them, those numbers says that they build an antenna that is a little worse than the iPhone 3G*, that is not a better antenna.
Although to be fair, its an antenna that - when held a certain very specific and unusual way - is a little worse than the 3G, but when used in any other conceivable way is vastly superior. All in all, a pretty good step forward, as you might realize if you'd actually used both products for a significant amount of time..
I've got a Milestone (EU version of the Droid) and try as I might I can't make a single bar drop below the regular 3 bars (max 4) where I am right now. Looking at the signal level, the worst I can do is drop it to -93 dBm, when I'm basically enveloping the whole phone (minus front screen) with my somewhat sweaty palms.
Your phone uses 3 bars to display -93dBm? Seriously?
The iPhone has more attenuation when squeezed than most phones. It also performs better at very low signal strength than most phones. It also had a ridiculously stupid graphical bar interface (now made more sensible).
One thing that this also points to is a need to move away from dBm meters to S/N meters... just as light bulb manufacturers are slowly moving away from Watts towards Lumens.
Agreed. Not only that, but the iPhone 4 can connect calls in areas that the 3GS couldn't, and those calls are much more likely to drop - there are no statistics, naturally, of people who wanted to make a call and couldn't reach a tower. So it may not even be a sign of a problem.
As an early adopter, I can attest - the attenuation is real, but a squeezed iPhone 4 still performs (for me) at least as well as a delicately cradled iPhone 3GS. This is purely a media-driven issue.
With a decent gateway you don't even have to do that. You take your gateway credentials and the credit card information, and use them to create a unique storable key. The only thing you can do with that key is to move money between that one particular CC and your gateway account (refund, add'l charge, etc). Technically someone could steal it and either issue refunds or make additional charges, but they generally wouldn't because there's no incentive for them to do so. Far safer (and more PCI compliant) than retaining the CC number itself.
Merchants are lax with security because there's no reason not to be.
Not exactly the case... a merchant found to be in breach of their PCI standards (which you agree to when you set up a gateway account) can have their charge privileges suspended or denied. And a hotel who couldn't process Visa/MC/Amex/Disc cards wouldn't last very long at all. You can argue that there should be more sport-checks, but PCI auditing is already a very expensive process, especially for smaller companies (you can easily spend $50K+ on an audit at PCI level one).
Of course, Apple also pointed out in their release that if you weren't happy that you could return the phone to wherever you purchased it - anywhere - for a full refund of your purchase price and all related charges.
But why bring "facts" into this discussion? Do continue, please...
And again, in practice, you can (or at least I can) get a call to go through on the iPhone 4 in places where the other phones have already lost signal. After which point, while chatting, if you death-grip the phone, you may lose the call.
Steve Jobs' response is absurd at best, especially when the ads show the iPhone being held exactly how he says not to. Who DOESN'T hold a phone like that, except for headset users?
If you read the Anandtech review, you'll see that holding the phone normally, while it has an affect, has a much milder one (and one that's more in line with other phones). Also, even when held in the worst possible way, the 4 seems to have as good or better connectivity than the 3G did (although the #bars display is moderately misleading, since the 4 works better at 1 bar than the 3G did at >1 bar - similar to the light output between a 60W incandescent bulb vs a 30W CFL (which would be stupid-bright at half the power)).
No, seriously, who cares? This is a process designed to save files that are then transferred through SneakerNet. While moderately large, at 80gb, they're not huge by modern standards. If you have a current solution that works, stick with it.
If, however, there are other constraints that are affecting you - transfer speed, decades-long retention on local media, security, etc, then by all means let us know. Until then, to use the obligatory car analogy, its as if you've said:
Due to the distance between my house and work, I currently use an automobile to go between the two locations and to perform various other services. Currently I use a Honda Accord. What would you suggest?
Agree with your points on RTMPE. As for full screen capabilities, check out http://jilion.com/sublime/video - very impressive, to my eyes at least. Overlayed controls, true fullscreen, etc, etc, all present and accounted for.
RTMPE is not broken at all.
Well, I don't know about everyone else, but your well-thought-out arguments certainly convinced me. RTMPE 4Ever!
"Cheap and Good Enough" is exactly what manufacturers like!
Oddly enough, that's exactly the same thing that I as a consumer go for. What's the most cost-effective way to purchase a product that meets my needs? If that solution exceeds my needs at the same time, that's a bonus, but not a requirement (if it had been, my needs would have been higher, and the previous solution wouldn't have met them).
Nowhere in that sentence does it imply "shoddy." Neither does it imply "gold plated." Just "good enough."
If only the military was sensitive enough to these things, and also wanted to make sure that private corporations didn't have to try to figure out when something like this happened, and chipped in enough extra money to cover these unexpected costs when someone died in combat (above and beyond the life insurance they would otherwise receive if they passed away peacefully on base).
Oh, wait, they do, and its $100,000 (tax-free IIRC). Its designed to cover these unpleasant situations. This is a time when we're already doing the right thing, but she wants Verizon to chip in and pay her phone subsidy for her as well.
The beauty of open source is not that you personally can check all of your installed apps to make sure none of them are doing anything evil (although that is a good thing). It's that there are thousands of eyes looking over that source code
Actually, I believe that you'll find that there are thousands of eyes belonging to people who are saying exactly what you are saying... which is why even obvious exploits have lived in massively used packages for months at a time.
After all, if you can't be bothered, why assume that anyone else can?
You have to pay for non-security bugfixes to Windows 2003 now, by buying a contract within 90 days of Jul 12, if you want support.
Which seems reasonable considering that the product came out 7 years ago, during which time there have been many free patches; also, a newer fully supported version was released 2 years ago. How long would you expect a company to maintain old versions of software for free?
I'm pretty impressed that they're still willing to support it for money, quite frankly.
That's very different than getting that information, "for free", with every request for an ad image. Adding the latency to query the ISP for the information before returning the ad would make the image load too slowly, and adding the API traffic would be pretty expensive in terms of open socket connections.
Really? You're given an opt-in / opt-out on every webpage you visit? I think not...
Exactly. And getting something like Flex working correctly in a touch environment -- or even "works at all" -- for the average business application, would seem to be a significant challenge when getting basic video playing to work effectively has proven to be quite difficult.
Flash is not just for videos.
Right... but since most flash apps don't even play videos as expected by the masses, properly, with controls and everything, we're a looooooong way away from what most people think of as "real flash working."
BTW, not having things like "cursor mode" different than "zoom mode", while a little limiting to the true geek, is part of what makes Apple's designs accessible to the masses.
Rotta reckons, "There is a growing trend for online role-playing games to encourage negative behaviour, by rewarding violent and brutal activities within the online games."
Yes because Crocheting & Knitting RPGs would sell so well.
Have you never heard of Farmville? I'd say that with the right positioning, a virtual knitting game might be - well - no less unlikely than a virtual farming one.