No reason ordinary folk shouldn't be allowed to enjoy the benefits of an un-crippled, unrestricted phone.
If having an unrestricted device is so important to them, why buy an iPhone at all ? Every other smartphone lets you use the network provider you want, or install the apps you want from anywhere.
Nokia N82. 5 megapixel camera with Xenon flash, which means it takes excellent pictures in low light conditions.In addition to that, autofocus, lightmeter, white balance, ISO settings..all can be customized. (Sadly, it's the first and last Nokia to feature a Xenon flash, even the upcoming uber-device N900 only has dual LED flash). It also has geotagging via GPS. Here's an example photo, andafewmore.
So going by that argument, should overclockers be refunded with a new GPU/CPU when theirs gets fried? Or should car companies compensate you for damaging your engine because you rebored the cylinders?
When you buy any other gadget, be it a PC/laptop/other mobile phone/gaming console, the manufacturer's warranty simply defines the operating conditions for the product, and how you will void warranty if you use it in any other way. For eg, if you spill coffee on your laptop keyboard, you'll have to pay for the repairs as it wouldn't be covered under warranty. If you overclock your CPU/GPU, you cannot complain if it gets fried. Understandably, Apple caters only to the technologically challenged and those who don't mind paying and then paying some more for a smooth experience. If you're a hacker type, your only option is to jailbreak it (or not use it at all). It would be better if they were a bit more flexible- officially continue with the app store, but also allow 3rd party apps with the disclaimer that you're on your own if your phone gets bricked by installing other stuff. At least it allows tinkering for those who want to. Then again, this is Apple we're talking about.
Quick question- what smartphones did the average Joe in the US use before the iPhone? Never mind.
..why does critical infrastructure need to be accessible remotely over the network? The computer systems for sensitive installations like this ought to be physically isolated, and all terminals accessing them secured properly. Let the sys admin or whoever works on them physically go to the power station/nuclear plant etc. Then we'll only have social engineering to worry about.
Symbian S60 3rd (and now 5th) Edition require all native apps to be digitally signed with a developer certificate that has to be bought from their site, and you can't sign up to purchase from a generic webmail account. Different types of certificates grant different permissions to the application for access to user data and handset features like SMS,calls, bluetooth,wifi, GPS etc.(
The handsets also block unsigned applications from being installed, so this also deters casual piracy (since a cracked Symbian application would not have the developer certificate). Of course, if you're determined, there are utilities to hack the phone's keystore and insert your own certificate there (which can be used to sign the cracked apps that you get.
The bottom line is, this approach works fine for regular users who wouldn't mess around with cracked apps, and yet there's no need for any approval process.
Apple may talk of the end user 'experience', but that should be upto the end user. There are people who overclock their GPUs, replace and tweak their cars' engines and so on, well aware of the risks of screwing up as well as the fact that it voids their warranty. I don't see why such an EULA shouldn't work for Apple. Let those who want to use the Appstore use it, let others who wanna hack the firmware do it and void their warranty.
IBM uses a different virtual machine implementation called the J9 VM. This has extra features like different garbage collection modes, and advanced options for generating core dumps and so on- for easier support, since the majority of IBM JDK users are Websphere customers (IBM JDK is the underlying core component of Websphere)
Uh, no. IBM has its own version of Java on a total of 12 combinations of platforms and architectures: Windows, x86 32/AMD64 Linux- x86 32,AMD 64, PowerPC 32/64 AIX -32/64 z/OS - 31/64 Linux on system Z- 31/64. In addition- it also has a hybrid JDK support for HPUX and Solaris-where the base Sun JDK's security, ORB and XML components are replaced by IBM's performance enhanced implementations. Java is a linchpin of IBM technology- the 4 main brands (Websphere,Rational,Lotus,Tivoli) all use IBM Java runtimes. However, under the licensing terms with Sun, IBM Java cannot be distributed separately on the same platforms as Sun, which is why you cannot download JDK for windows/Linux. You can however obtain an IBM JDK for AIX/System Z since those are IBM only OSes.
In addition to the above- the Apache Harmony open source JDK is also heavily supported and funded by IBM. You can find more information here.
..but I use Mobipocket Reader. This is a software for windows,Mac and Linux (the desktop version) as well as a mobile counterpart that works on all major mobile platforms (Palm, Windows mobile/CE,Symbian, Blackberry), and you can synchronize books and bookmarks between your device and the desktop.
I use it with my Nokia N82 to read on the bus on the way to work. Of course, reading on a 2.5" screen isn't the same as a dedicated reading device (or a paper book ^^), but I prefer having one all in one device for communication, music and reading books.
I'll tell you why becoming an ICBM power is not on the agenda (I'm Indian, btw).
The biggest nuclear threat we as Indians face are from the two neighbors- Pakistan and China (the latter somewhat less so).
India has pretty cordial diplomatic relations with the rest of the world-possibly due to its history of the non aligned movement in the 60s, where it maintained friendly relations with both Western and Eastern bloc powers.
*IF* we wanted to nuke our neighbors, ICBMs would be total overkill. The Agni III missile has a range from 3500-5000 km-quite sufficient coverage of all targets within Pakistan, and the ability to reach China.
Let's face it- the US remains the only country in the world to have deployed nukes during warfare (may it never happen again). The arms race that started in 1945 continues, and every country has to maintain a nuclear deterrent.
UNINTUITIVE?? Try using Notes. (and yeah i mean the latest greatest 8.0.1). here's some of my pet peeves - -memory hog (350 megs of ram gone no matter what you do) - No context sensitive menus. you get the same fucked up 'database' options no matter where you click. why can't i rightclick a mail and mark it read/unread, FFS? -cannot run your mail rules on existing mails in the inbox or subfolders. -Single threaded network access, which means clicking on a link to a remote database will freeze up the application till it completes.
MS outlook is a messaging and calendaring/scheduling app, and no more. And for that, it does the job quite well, speaking from a corporate mail rather than an end user point of view. Notes tries to be some kind of all in one groupware/application platform out of which mail is just one function and there it loses out.
Seriously...try Notes and soon you'll be crying out for the wonderfully friendly and efficient Outlook!!/sarcasm
The poster is incorrect; it is not 'written in Eclipse'. Rather it uses the Eclipse Rich Client Platform.
Eclipse started out as an IDE, now it provides rich client frameworks so that you can quickly create an application for any of the supported platforms with the same widgets and look and feel that Eclipse provides.
I am using Notes 8.0.1. After taking a look-they've essentially wrapped an Eclipse framework around the same old client as Notes 7. While it does add on some pretty features, it is just a veneer.
Scratch the surface and you find the same fugly old Notes client as was present earlier.
Infact, there are 2 binaries for launching notes- notes.exe and nlnotes.exe. The latter launches the client without the eclipse framework, and you get the same Soviet era style horrible UI as before.
Oh and be prepared to forfeit about 350 MB RAM when running the full client, ie with Eclipse framework.
And-this is priceless- in the year 2008, there STILL is no way to start a network operation without locking up the application solid. In other words, it still does not feature multi threading for network access, so click a database link and be prepared to either sit back and wait and be unable to do anything else, or cancel it by ctrl-break.
Bluetooth phones can be set to function in 'hidden' mode. Doing this makes the phone visible only to another paired Bluetooth device. A paired device is one that you trust and connect to frequently-say your headset or laptop. Pairing also requires a shared key for encryption. I always operate bluetooth in hidden mode when I need it (typically i use the headset while driving), and I turn it off when not needed to conserve battery power.
How is this a problem? Keep your bluetooth turned off when you're not using it, and make it visible only to paired/trusted devices. Leaving it on and visible also exposes you to bluetooth attacks and mobile phone viruses that spread via infected bluetooth messages.
Since when have lawyers used their brains?
Here's the most ridiculous example of so called trademark infringement.
To summarize-There's a Star Wars character called Nomi Sunrider, that was created at some point in the 80s. Jeep, the vehicle manufacturer, sued them for trademark infringment because they make a line of soft top vehicles called Sunrider !!
How is anyone ever going to confuse a vehicle with a fictional character from Star Wars?
But guess what? Jeep won the case, and so Lucas Arts was unable to use the same character in KOTOR 1 and 2.
TFA cites Google as allowing employees to configure their systems on their own. IBM does the same- there are preconfigured OS images (WinXP, Red Hat, Ubuntu) with everything configured. In addition- employees have to adhere to internal IT guidelines. Everyone has root/administrator access, but are warned not to install unauthorized software. There is also an audit tool that scans your system for adherence to rules (password strength, no shared folders allowed on Windows, and no P2P software). OS and other patches and fixes are delivered by an in-house system that replaces Windows Update.
It also depends on the kind of users at your company. Software geeks are usually informed enough to look after their computers; you would not want to trust the average clueless noob with administering his/her own workstation(these would predominate in a company whose core business was not software related)
I've used Nokias for the last 5 years, so I can tell you a bit.
The E-series are great business phones-the E61 offers wifi, qwerty and full blackberry like email support. Nokia doesn't yet support threaded SMS natively, but they've launched a free beta app that does the same (Nokia Conversation) and it works well for me.
The N-series are more oriented towards multimedia, gaming and photography- I've used the N73 and currently own the N82 (wifi, GPS, 5mp camera with flash and lightmeter,3G, uPnP support, stereo speakers-you name it!)
If Linux floats your boat- Motorola has a few nice Linux based smartphones, but I'm unaware of the details.
I don't know why everyone here goes on carping about how all background apps will kill battery life. It depends on how well designed an application is. I use a free service called ShoZu, that delivers mobile content to your phone. It offers a native Symbian client as well as a J2ME client for lower end phones, and can check for updates from a list of sources (Youtube, CNN, BBC, to name a few) and download free podcasts, videos etc in the background- apart from letting you directly post photos you've clicked to any number of services- Flickr, Blogger, LiveJournal, Vox and Facebook, to name a few.
However- it also offers you the ability to configure this behaviour. You can turn it off completely and do it manually, or set the time interval, from 15 minutes to once a week !! You can also set a limit to the data downloaded, in case you're on a limited data plan. I've set mine to run once a week, and there are no problems whatsoever.
Similarly, I've got other programs that run daemons (on my Nokia N82)- for call blocking, changing the phone's profile to silent mode during a meeting, etc, and there's no impact to battery life.
It should be upto the user to pick and choose applications and try them out as per convenience. I don't see how Apple mollycoddling people in this manner can be termed a good thing. Besides- if you're smart enough to install applications (some that may poll the internet in the background), you should be smart enough to figure out that that will impact battery life, and choose accordingly.
I have a Nokia N82 with the same amount of RAM, ie 128 MB. After bootup, I have about 95 MB available for user apps. I've played freaking QUAKE 1 with the following apps running in the background-
And after all this, when I paused the game to look at memory usage, I still had around 65 MB available. Mobile apps are not like PC apps, they take up correspondingly less space; 128 MB is quite sufficient at least for current classes of mobile apps!!
I call bull on this one. I had a Nokia N73 till recently-it's the best selling one out of their N-series range. It has a 1100 mAh battery, and despite having installed multiple apps - Shozu, a photosharing/uploading service, Jaiku, a much more fully featured micro-blog than Twitter, a call manager/SMS spam blocker (Advanced Call Manager form Webgate) and several more-apart from listening to one hour of MP3 music on the bus everyday- I have to charge it maybe once in 3 days.
Symbian OS phones are the largest selling smartphones on the planet, look it up. All have had multitasking capabilities for YEARS now.
It's the usual group-think that Apple can do no wrong, and that they know better than the end user what the phone should be used for.
And for all those morons who say the iPhone firmware can be cracked, may i remind you that Nokia, Sony-Ericsson and Motorola offer all these capabilities OUT OF THE BOX, without having to mess with the firmware and void your warranty.
Sure sucks to live in a neanderthal mobile market like the USA, though.
Uh..that's because battery technology hasn't kept up. Higher CPU speed and higher display require more battery power to keep running.
I have a N82, with a dual core ARM 333 MHz CPU and dedicated OpenGL graphics, Wifi, 5 mp camera with flash, and assisted GPS, running on a 1050 mAh Li-Ion battery that lasts for about 2 days of heavy use before requiring a recharge.
Contact the slashdot admins and bribe them enough to find the real identity of 140Mandak262Jamuna who is definitely a programming super nova. You mean when you burn out you do so in a spectacular explosion?
10 to 1 you're from IIT..cue the username and the attitude.
Slashdot Mirror
No reason ordinary folk shouldn't be allowed to enjoy the benefits of an un-crippled, unrestricted phone.
If having an unrestricted device is so important to them, why buy an iPhone at all ?
Every other smartphone lets you use the network provider you want, or install the apps you want from anywhere.
Nokia N82. 5 megapixel camera with Xenon flash, which means it takes excellent pictures in low light conditions.In addition to that, autofocus, lightmeter, white balance, ISO settings..all can be customized. (Sadly, it's the first and last Nokia to feature a Xenon flash, even the upcoming uber-device N900 only has dual LED flash). It also has geotagging via GPS.
Here's an example photo, and a few more.
So going by that argument, should overclockers be refunded with a new GPU/CPU when theirs gets fried?
Or should car companies compensate you for damaging your engine because you rebored the cylinders?
When you buy any other gadget, be it a PC/laptop/other mobile phone/gaming console, the manufacturer's warranty simply defines the operating conditions for the product, and how you will
void warranty if you use it in any other way. For eg, if you spill coffee on your laptop keyboard, you'll have to pay for the repairs as it wouldn't be covered under warranty. If you overclock your CPU/GPU, you cannot complain if it gets fried.
Understandably, Apple caters only to the technologically challenged and those who don't mind paying and then paying some more for a smooth experience.
If you're a hacker type, your only option is to jailbreak it (or not use it at all).
It would be better if they were a bit more flexible- officially continue with the app store, but also allow 3rd party apps with the disclaimer that you're on your own if your phone gets bricked by installing other stuff. At least it allows tinkering for those who want to.
Then again, this is Apple we're talking about.
Quick question- what smartphones did the average Joe in the US use before the iPhone? Never mind.
It was called 'The Patchwork Girl'.
..why does critical infrastructure need to be accessible remotely over the network? The computer systems for sensitive installations like this ought to be physically isolated, and all terminals accessing them secured properly. Let the sys admin or whoever works on them physically go to the power station/nuclear plant etc. Then we'll only have social engineering to worry about.
Symbian S60 3rd (and now 5th) Edition require all native apps to be digitally signed with a developer certificate that has to be bought from their site, and you can't sign up to purchase from a generic webmail account. Different types of certificates grant different permissions to the application for access to user data and handset features like SMS,calls, bluetooth,wifi, GPS etc.(
The handsets also block unsigned applications from being installed, so this also deters casual piracy (since a cracked Symbian application would not have the developer certificate).
Of course, if you're determined, there are utilities to hack the phone's keystore and insert your own certificate there (which can be used to sign the cracked apps that you get.
The bottom line is, this approach works fine for regular users who wouldn't mess around with cracked apps, and yet there's no need for any approval process.
Apple may talk of the end user 'experience', but that should be upto the end user. There are people who overclock their GPUs, replace and tweak their cars' engines and so on, well aware of the risks of screwing up as well as the fact that it voids their warranty. I don't see why such an EULA shouldn't work for Apple. Let those who want to use the Appstore use it, let others who wanna hack the firmware do it and void their warranty.
Maybe that's the legacy image of IBM within the US- you should see the atmosphere in the labs in other places- India, China, Israel.
IBM uses a different virtual machine implementation called the J9 VM. This has extra features like different garbage collection modes, and advanced options for generating core dumps and so on- for easier support, since the majority of IBM JDK users are Websphere customers (IBM JDK is the underlying core component of Websphere)
Uh, no.
IBM has its own version of Java on a total of 12 combinations of platforms and architectures:
Windows, x86 32/AMD64
Linux- x86 32,AMD 64, PowerPC 32/64
AIX -32/64
z/OS - 31/64
Linux on system Z- 31/64.
In addition- it also has a hybrid JDK support for HPUX and Solaris-where the base Sun JDK's security, ORB and XML components are replaced by IBM's performance enhanced implementations.
Java is a linchpin of IBM technology- the 4 main brands (Websphere,Rational,Lotus,Tivoli) all use IBM Java runtimes.
However, under the licensing terms with Sun, IBM Java cannot be distributed separately on the same platforms as Sun, which is why you cannot download JDK for windows/Linux.
You can however obtain an IBM JDK for AIX/System Z since those are IBM only OSes.
In addition to the above- the Apache Harmony open source JDK is also heavily supported and funded by IBM.
You can find more information here.
..but I use Mobipocket Reader. This is a software for windows,Mac and Linux (the desktop version) as well as a mobile counterpart that works on all major mobile platforms (Palm, Windows mobile/CE,Symbian, Blackberry), and you can synchronize books and bookmarks between your device and the desktop.
I use it with my Nokia N82 to read on the bus on the way to work. Of course, reading on a 2.5" screen isn't the same as a dedicated reading device (or a paper book ^^), but I prefer having one all in one device for communication, music and reading books.
I'll tell you why becoming an ICBM power is not on the agenda (I'm Indian, btw).
The biggest nuclear threat we as Indians face are from the two neighbors- Pakistan and China (the latter somewhat less so).
India has pretty cordial diplomatic relations with the rest of the world-possibly due to its history of the non aligned movement in the 60s, where it maintained friendly relations with both Western and Eastern bloc powers.
*IF* we wanted to nuke our neighbors, ICBMs would be total overkill. The Agni III missile has a range from 3500-5000 km-quite sufficient coverage of all targets within Pakistan, and the ability to reach China.
Let's face it- the US remains the only country in the world to have deployed nukes during warfare (may it never happen again). The arms race that started in 1945 continues, and every country has to maintain a nuclear deterrent.
UNINTUITIVE?? Try using Notes. (and yeah i mean the latest greatest 8.0.1).
/sarcasm
here's some of my pet peeves -
-memory hog (350 megs of ram gone no matter what you do)
- No context sensitive menus. you get the same fucked up 'database' options no matter where you click. why can't i rightclick a mail and mark it read/unread, FFS?
-cannot run your mail rules on existing mails in the inbox or subfolders.
-Single threaded network access, which means clicking on a link to a remote database will freeze up the application till it completes.
MS outlook is a messaging and calendaring/scheduling app, and no more. And for that, it does the job quite well, speaking from a corporate mail rather than an end user point of view.
Notes tries to be some kind of all in one groupware/application platform out of which mail is just one function and there it loses out.
Seriously...try Notes and soon you'll be crying out for the wonderfully friendly and efficient Outlook!!
The poster is incorrect; it is not 'written in Eclipse'. Rather it uses the Eclipse Rich Client Platform.
Eclipse started out as an IDE, now it provides rich client frameworks so that you can quickly create an application for any of the supported platforms with the same widgets and look and feel that Eclipse provides.
I am using Notes 8.0.1. After taking a look-they've essentially wrapped an Eclipse framework around the same old client as Notes 7. While it does add on some pretty features, it is just a veneer.
Scratch the surface and you find the same fugly old Notes client as was present earlier. Infact, there are 2 binaries for launching notes- notes.exe and nlnotes.exe. The latter launches the client without the eclipse framework, and you get the same Soviet era style horrible UI as before.
Oh and be prepared to forfeit about 350 MB RAM when running the full client, ie with Eclipse framework.
And-this is priceless- in the year 2008, there STILL is no way to start a network operation without locking up the application solid. In other words, it still does not feature multi threading for network access, so click a database link and be prepared to either sit back and wait and be unable to do anything else, or cancel it by ctrl-break.
Bluetooth phones can be set to function in 'hidden' mode. Doing this makes the phone visible only to another paired Bluetooth device. A paired device is one that you trust and connect to frequently-say your headset or laptop. Pairing also requires a shared key for encryption. I always operate bluetooth in hidden mode when I need it (typically i use the headset while driving), and I turn it off when not needed to conserve battery power.
How is this a problem? Keep your bluetooth turned off when you're not using it, and make it visible only to paired/trusted devices. Leaving it on and visible also exposes you to bluetooth attacks and mobile phone viruses that spread via infected bluetooth messages.
Since when have lawyers used their brains? Here's the most ridiculous example of so called trademark infringement.
To summarize-There's a Star Wars character called Nomi Sunrider, that was created at some point in the 80s. Jeep, the vehicle manufacturer, sued them for trademark infringment because they make a line of soft top vehicles called Sunrider !!
How is anyone ever going to confuse a vehicle with a fictional character from Star Wars?
But guess what? Jeep won the case, and so Lucas Arts was unable to use the same character in KOTOR 1 and 2.
TFA cites Google as allowing employees to configure their systems on their own. IBM does the same- there are preconfigured OS images (WinXP, Red Hat, Ubuntu) with everything configured. In addition- employees have to adhere to internal IT guidelines. Everyone has root/administrator access, but are warned not to install unauthorized software. There is also an audit tool that scans your system for adherence to rules (password strength, no shared folders allowed on Windows, and no P2P software). OS and other patches and fixes are delivered by an in-house system that replaces Windows Update. It also depends on the kind of users at your company. Software geeks are usually informed enough to look after their computers; you would not want to trust the average clueless noob with administering his/her own workstation(these would predominate in a company whose core business was not software related)
I've used Nokias for the last 5 years, so I can tell you a bit.
The E-series are great business phones-the E61 offers wifi, qwerty and full blackberry like email support. Nokia doesn't yet support threaded SMS natively, but they've launched a free beta app that does the same (Nokia Conversation) and it works well for me. The N-series are more oriented towards multimedia, gaming and photography- I've used the N73 and currently own the N82 (wifi, GPS, 5mp camera with flash and lightmeter,3G, uPnP support, stereo speakers-you name it!) If Linux floats your boat- Motorola has a few nice Linux based smartphones, but I'm unaware of the details.
I don't know why everyone here goes on carping about how all background apps will kill battery life. It depends on how well designed an application is. I use a free service called ShoZu, that delivers mobile content to your phone. It offers a native Symbian client as well as a J2ME client for lower end phones, and can check for updates from a list of sources (Youtube, CNN, BBC, to name a few) and download free podcasts, videos etc in the background- apart from letting you directly post photos you've clicked to any number of services- Flickr, Blogger, LiveJournal, Vox and Facebook, to name a few.
However- it also offers you the ability to configure this behaviour. You can turn it off completely and do it manually, or set the time interval, from 15 minutes to once a week !! You can also set a limit to the data downloaded, in case you're on a limited data plan. I've set mine to run once a week, and there are no problems whatsoever. Similarly, I've got other programs that run daemons (on my Nokia N82)- for call blocking, changing the phone's profile to silent mode during a meeting, etc, and there's no impact to battery life.
It should be upto the user to pick and choose applications and try them out as per convenience. I don't see how Apple mollycoddling people in this manner can be termed a good thing. Besides- if you're smart enough to install applications (some that may poll the internet in the background), you should be smart enough to figure out that that will impact battery life, and choose accordingly.
- Mobipocket reader
- The built in music player (paused)
- The built in web browser, open on Gmail.
- Nokia Maps, a GPS based map software.
And after all this, when I paused the game to look at memory usage, I still had around 65 MB available. Mobile apps are not like PC apps, they take up correspondingly less space; 128 MB is quite sufficient at least for current classes of mobile apps!!I call bull on this one. I had a Nokia N73 till recently-it's the best selling one out of their N-series range. It has a 1100 mAh battery, and despite having installed multiple apps - Shozu, a photosharing/uploading service, Jaiku, a much more fully featured micro-blog than Twitter, a call manager/SMS spam blocker (Advanced Call Manager form Webgate) and several more-apart from listening to one hour of MP3 music on the bus everyday- I have to charge it maybe once in 3 days. Symbian OS phones are the largest selling smartphones on the planet, look it up. All have had multitasking capabilities for YEARS now. It's the usual group-think that Apple can do no wrong, and that they know better than the end user what the phone should be used for. And for all those morons who say the iPhone firmware can be cracked, may i remind you that Nokia, Sony-Ericsson and Motorola offer all these capabilities OUT OF THE BOX, without having to mess with the firmware and void your warranty. Sure sucks to live in a neanderthal mobile market like the USA, though.
Uh..that's because battery technology hasn't kept up. Higher CPU speed and higher display require more battery power to keep running. I have a N82, with a dual core ARM 333 MHz CPU and dedicated OpenGL graphics, Wifi, 5 mp camera with flash, and assisted GPS, running on a 1050 mAh Li-Ion battery that lasts for about 2 days of heavy use before requiring a recharge.
If you can't even set up rudimentary ad blocking, you lose your geek card.