As a New Zealander, living in a country of a voluminous FOUR million, it sucks being left out. Yes, the NZ release of the iPad has been announced...but its been a long time for many NZ Apple fans, I bet many worldwide have been annoyed.
The first iPhone sold in NZ was the 3G. I imported an Original iPhone, it ended up costing me $790 NZD ($564 odd USD) all up, and I run it on a prepaid plan, no set monthly costs. The 3G iPhone would have cost over 1000 NZD new, so I saved A LOT of money, *AND* had a product months before it was released in my country. A Win Win situation!
Sadly my iPad will have cost me more than if I had waited, but I stick by my decision to buy an import when I did. I've had my iPad for a couple weeks now, and an extra hundred odd dollars is worth it to me. I remember going slowly insane over the NZ iPhone wait...hearing every single blog on the internet (even the gardening sites!) talk talk talk about the iPhone...how great it is, how wonderful, who needs Jesus when we have this wonderful iPhone....I'd rather pay a couple hundred more than have to put up with that for months, especially when the dates are "to be confirmed".
But hey, if the worst thing you have to whine about in life is that you have to wait a couple months for the latest gadget....perhaps I shouldnt be complaining:)
Hey 0xdeadbeef (what an unfortunate name, I'm vegan),
I was about 12 when the Original iMac came out, I was always more impressed by the USB port (! OMFG, USB !) and on the high end "iMac DV" model, the big differences being it was BLACK,ooooh, and had a graphics card that carried slightly less Fail......but also...the Apple Pro optical mouse! I fell in love with Macs at that point!
My school had old clunkers running Windows 95, the typical Beige Box, this massive tower with a noisy CD drive, and perhaps even a "Turbo" button if you were lucky! Their mouses screwed in with those giant serial connectors (from memory)! So to see this beautiful little see through black soap bar, connecting through an elegant USB port...with its pulsing "HAL 9000" red light.....magic!
The colours were no big deal to me, Bondi Blue I believe.
I dont know what you have against the Republicans. Its best not to bring them up randomly, that can be considered trolling. Lets assume you support the Democrats? Would you like it if you came across someone who was all "the democrats are just like the communists, providing hospital access to people in this country is the same as shooting Uncle Sam and raping the Statue Of Liberty...." ?
Live and let live I say. Now, I am also a New Zealander, I dont live in America, so anything I say about it would be somewhat uninformed (although I probably watch as much US tv/movies as any American), and would be taken harshly.
I've grown up hearing understanding the Republicans to be some sort of evil race that came about at the time of the dinosaurs, that they are "always" about 80 years old, senile, yelling about the damn immigrants to a country built by immigrants, and that the internet is a tool of the devil.
We also hear, through The Simpsons episodes since we were very young, The Daily Show (although its not really on air in NZ anymore! what!) that the Democrats are whiny, rich and white but always concerned about poor and black people, driving a Prius with a Starbucks coffee in one hand, their iPhone in the other, ineffectual....
Stereotypes go both ways, I wouldnt participate in spreading them.
How often do we hear from "Apple fanbois" these days? If you ask me, it seems there are many times more "anti Apple mobs" than fanboys. Just read the comments section of any Youtube video, Engadget, Gizmodo, Kotaku.....entry about an Apple product. Despite the fact there are filters to remove all Apple stories from their view, they screech on and on about how the Poster must be Steve Jobs love slave.
I havnt seen someone post "and this is why Apple is superior as always, the iPod is amazing, the iPhone is marvellous, the iPad is the third wheel on a glorious trilogy of magical childlike wonderment....." in some time.
Its ok if you like Apple, its ok if you dislike Apple. I have mostly Apple gear, I have a friend who is heavily into Windows, he works with that silverlight amongst other MS ideas. He chose to buy some Sony Ericsson with a resistive touch screen running Symbian, I chose my iPhone. He got that bulky lump of plastic after playing with my iPhone, he could have bought an iPhone, but he wanted "an open platform". I'm sure he enjoys the handful of applications that came with the phone, and the knowledge that he could perhaps use the infared transmitter on the phone to change channels on his television...if the transmitter was boosted....
But that was his choice, he seems to regret it now, but I wouldnt "force" him to drink from my flask of Apple Koolaid.
sounds a bit like "why use an iPod Touch (etc) for music when you can get a secondhand cassette player for a couple bucks, and you can easily dub any tapes you find"
I have great hopes for the iPad, although I wish it had more hardware features, I am sure it will be at least a moderate success.
Very funny:) As a 22 year old New Zealander, I sure know I feel safer with my 22 year old friend in his second car, a near top of the line BMW 3 series driving at 160kph (something like 99 miles per hour) than with my grandmother in her Peugeot at very slow speeds! (it was a one off time that he drove that fast on a country road, and I certainly didnt want him to do it, our speed limit on the "open road" is 100kph)
All seriousness aside, I think its very unfair that NZ mainstream media currently has a thing about "boy racers", younger males with fast/ look and sound fast cars, and our centre right wing government has this bright idea to "crush their cars". Instead of perhaps selling the cars and recouping police costs etc, these works of art will be destroyed into a lump of aluminium and steel.
Funny, I was watching "Goodbye Pork Pie", a movie from 1980, where a young man steals a drivers license and money, and becomes an outlaw with a rented Mini! I work with 50+ year olds, and they can admit that "it was fun when we were young", but now "its different" !
We've had this big BS "Americana" celebration recently, with 50 year Detroit bangers belching smoke about my city, with the often retirement age owners talking about "heres some REAL muscle" etc, despite the fact the old junkers would in no way be competitive with modern cars. comparing safety improvements over 50 years in American cars
Myself, I'm just waiting for electric cars to take off! I want my affordable Tesla!:)
I'm a young New Zealander who doesnt drive, can anyone explain why American cars historically have had/have "super sized" pedals please? What is the point? It sounds awful to me. In New Zealand, we used to have old banger "British Leyland" marques until we became an "elephants graveyard" for Japanese imports. New Zealand's car scene is populated mostly by 10+ year old Japanese imports that wouldnt be anywhere near the current Japanese standards.
In my mind, it would be far better to have smaller, although not *TINY* pedals close-ish together? Instead of slamming your left foot onto the thick slab over there, slamming your right foot at the thick slab way over there....
Wow! Apple invented the MP3 player, the cell phone and the tablet PC! You learn something new every day here on Slashdot!
Back in the real world, Apple produce moderately unsucky versions of consumer devices that have been in the market for years, and throw vast amounts of advertising at selling them.
Ok, heres the deal. I live in Soviet New Zealand, we have crappy 3G, still no Kindle, basically no Android devices, certainly not the Droid or Nexus One, JUST got the Tivo (although not the latest version!) and right now, I've gone over my 10GB a month "bandwidth cap" and have been reduced to "dialup speeds". I've really enjoyed watching my network access speeds in Activity Monitor, less than 10KB per second up or down. Wonderful stuff!
In New Zealand, at least the part I live in, we have essentially ZERO Apple advertising. Apple Haters, feel free to move here, you'll love it. We might get an ad or two for the new iPhone, when it comes out, but thats really it. Hey, I wont be surprised if its a year before we get this "iPad":)
And yet, if you offered to the average person on the street, a Nexus One/Droid/Pre/Storm 2 in one hand, and an iPhone 3GS in the other, there would be no fsking way that you'd get the iPhone back. Based on a random person, in a country where neither device has been advertised (the non iPhones I mentioned are essentially not even goddam sold here!), I'm very sure the iPhone would be chosen.
I'll let you know in a year or two, when I might get an iPad 3GS++ Pro of my own, but Im quite sure that an uniformed person would absolutely take an iPad over a netbook.
I'll complain as much as the next man when my favourite sites have paywalls erected, but surely news is worth SOMETHING?
News flash: A majority of people online whine and bitch every time they have to pay a cent! No matter what they get, they are always wanting it for free! I have friends who complain bitterly about the price of the iTunes store, almost all songs are between $1.79 and 2.39 NZD, probably the cost of a large bottle of Coke say. "oh, if it were 20 cents a song, THEN I'd buy...", thats right, until the music is priced at some useless amount, they "refuse to pay that exorbitant fee" ! Bittorrenting/Rapidsharing (heh) everything that was ever produced.
I say, C'mon! A couple bucks for a song is chump change! What does "1.79" buy you anyway?
I dont see myself lining up to pay for news - shouldnt advertising take care of that sort of thing? -, but if a company wants to charge you "$1" for access, who are you to complain? By all means, feel free to start your own news company offering access for "99c":) There is a cost to having journalists and editors and bandwidth and...
I support many free sites, I love contributing to Wikipedia and cant see myself "buying an encyclopedia", but there is a cost to producing material, online or in dead tree form, so why complain about giving some of your change to pay for an everlasting good? (a song cant be emptied like a bottle of Coke)
You can say all you want about screen resolutions, fact is, if you want to use the internet, the iPhone zips way out in front for loading times, and has a more accurate touchscreen, it lets you get the job done faster. I am used to higher resolution displays, and can see how photos etc would look better, but sight unseen, I dont know if I'd prefer prettier banner ads over a fast and easier to use browser.
I've wanted to play around with a Nexus One, as an "Apple Fanboi", I think its great that the iPhone is starting to get competition. Its a joke at the moment though, I dont even really think Android phones are sold in NZ? I think theres one or two, tucked away somewhere at the carrier store, only advertised as "With Google". "but my phone already does Google Search!":)
Sure, I also like the more...esoteric...devices to be covered, but in "mainstream tech news", I understand and enjoy hearing about the commercially successful products. I come to Slashdot for more technical coverage.
Every now and then I read a local newspaper, I could never imagine subscribing to a newspaper, the "tech page" comes ONLY on thursday, is often half a page, perhaps a full page if lucky, and mostly AP stories. Often it has some rather stupid stories that will go nowhere. I'd rather hear opinion about the future of cellphone OS's, or the future of media etc (in a newspaper?! lol) instead of these rather lameduck stories.
With the iPad, I thought the stories were mostly "IT SUX!111!!!!", because it wasnt as great as the incredible hype, or jokes about the name.
I think the Kindle deserved/deserves news, dont you? I always enjoy hearing about it, and I considered buying one....oh yeah, but they are not on sale in my country! Way to go Amazon!
I see the iPad as deserving lots of coverage, as its going to be a real product, from an amazingly hot company, and it could truly be a "-killer" product. iPad seems to have the best of the Microsoft Surface table, and the Kindle, built into one device, I'd imagine it being awesome for photo viewing, web surfing, Google Maps and perhaps the book feature. Its a real product, it will be actually available worldwide... and I can imagine myself getting one.
Of course, I was hoping it would be more "newton" like rather than "a big ass iPod Touch", with handwriting recognition, but Apple doesnt owe me anything so I cant complain:)
I absolutely understand that, but I was meaning the general "the iPhone has no coverage" BS as being AT&T that has "no coverage":)
The complaints that "the iPhone drops calls/has no coverage" seem to exist only in the USA, on AT&T...
Granted, I dont make many phonecalls at all, but I've never really heard of people in NZ complaining of dropped calls (except perhaps if they "drove into a tunnel" or were in a rural part of the country, 3% of NZ doesnt have coverage)
But, without the iPhone, and Apple in general, what would the "mainstream tech news" be about? "oooh, facebook changed its privacy settings again"...? Tivo? Dell has a sale on, and you can save $5 bucks on a netbook? These are not very exciting topics, probably wouldnt get much traffic:)
Big product launches, such as new cellphones, deserve at least some major attention. I'm an iPhone user, but I enjoy reading Android coverage, and I read what I can about the Palm Pre. Although, Android OS phones and the Pre are not really on sale here in NZ, its not much fun reading about things we cant really buy!
I believe Engadget has a "no iPhone filter", perhaps filters should become a standard option across websites, so you would be able to filter out everything you dont like, perhaps building your own coverage through various RSS feeds strung together on a "home" page.
I agree, my point is, theres all this raw HATE for the iPhone, much of it from bitter people who for whatever reason cannot have an iPhone, and "the coverage sucks" is a very common complaint I hear.
The problem is not with the phone, its that damn AT&T network in the USA. I hope people remember, Apple supposedly went to Verizon first
From what I understand, Verizon is the best US network, and the iPhone is a very desirable phone (anywhere in the world), if the two met, it would be a marvellous thing.
I know it sucks having "locked" phones, most of the world has "unlocked" phones, you can easily run any iPhone 3G or 3GS on any of the three networks here in New Zealand, just throw the sim card in, boom!
these people who complain about low signal strength with their iPhones, are they on AT&T? I live in New Zealand, I have a jailbroken Original iPhone running on Vodafone and it works just fine...As you know, the Original iPhone is 2G, but that shouldnt matter, if you are talking about dropped calls etc?
I believe all the iPhone troubles, to be the fault of AT&T, since nowhere else in the world do iPhones seem to have as much as trouble!
You have a problem with "peace activists"? Are you incredibly "hawkish" or something?
RE "socialised medicine", ooh, sounds scary doesnt it! Ha, why dont you just call it "soviet-ized medicine", since the whole point is to aggravate McCarthyism. Call it "universial healthcare", or better yet, call it "healthcare", as thats what pretty much every other country in the world would call it.
You really must understand this. In New Zealand we have the "public" option, which is the "universal healthcare", and yes, in some cases, maybe quite a few cases, its underfunded and there are shortages. But ya know what? If you have the money, you can go "private" and beat the waiting lines! Ha! So, thats pretty much the perfect system right? The people who cant pay, they get their lives saved, instead of dying, the people who can pay, do just that... where is your problem?
RE the pregnant women story, I remember that, and they could have went "private".
For cripes sake man, drop the "socialised medicine" strawman! Yes, in soviet New Zealand, we all have one blunt plastic knife, fork and spoon per neighbourhood, I havnt been able to eat my breakfast of a cold army ration yet because I'm not scheduled to use the utensils until 2AM next Tuesday morning...
I agree with many of the things you have said, but would like to mention again the Rainbow Warrior. When that was sunk, by the French, presumably to prevent it being used to protest their nuclear tests "in the neighbourhood", it strengthened NZ public opinion almost infinitely against Nuclear anything.
The Sinking Of The Rainbow Warrior was a life changing experience for many NZers, the feeling that we were invaded by a secret service from a much larger country, that they would come here and blow up a peaceful ship that protested their nearby explosions... very, very, very bad PR for all things Nuclear.
Right, so a country of 4 million odd, standing up against a country of 300 million odd, a country that, "pound for pound" has us beat many times over, a country that declares itself "the only superpower" in the world, that invades other countries of the slightest of pretences....we stand up and say "we dont want your, in our opinion, dangerous shit in our ports", and thats cowardly?!?
Evolution Denial is one manifestation of gross stupidity, while the Nuclear Free Berkeley Act and the Oppressive States Compliance Resolution are others.
My whole country is Nuclear Free, does that make us guilty of "gross stupidity"?
I've always been fairly "pro nuclear", and NZ still has radioactive elements in smoke detectors, medical equipment etc....being "Nuclear Free" hasnt caused us to be terribly backwards in any way I can tell?
heh, your laser pointer analogy made me laugh, I have a cheap green laser pointer and it leaves an obvious green beam, which is about the easiest light source in the world to follow:) Keeping with the analogy, with a flashlight, its a larger light source, the laser pointer is like saying "the attacker is at the other end of this perfectly narrow and straight line":)
I understand what you mean about more modern radar though.
I dont like putting myself in the armchair expert role, but I'd like to mention something. Wasnt the whole point of the F22 to be pretty much the "baddest" aircraft in the air? The whole point of it is to be complimented by F35 and F15's...
I think its fair to say that ITS POSSIBLE for Russian aircraft to surpass American aircraft, its happened a few times before...I believe there are stories about certain cold war era soviet fighters being infinitely more manoeuvrable? Able to perform stunts that could not possibly be matched by US planes?
The F22 was never meant to be dirt cheap, and flying in fleets of a thousands, it was meant to be special, to be stealthier, to be faster, to be deadlier than any other plane it would go up against. If its not those things....which COULD be possible....then its not really useful?
Not that interesting; the Stinger is a piece of crap designed to be a man-portable SAM; it isn't really comparable to a proper air-to-air missile that the MiG was armed with
Ha, so remind us why the US pilot of the drone decided to hang around and fire at the obviously superior foxbat?
I actually enjoy purchasing music through iTunes, when you have such a low price point ($1.79-2.39 NZD) per song, why bother finding torrents and having the police knock down your door?
I also love buying iPhone apps, I would never consider stealing the dollar or two that the average App costs.
Recently, the thing thats screwed me over is Audiobooks, they are near impossible to get here? Audible lets me have an account, but books I wanted, even very well known ones like A Clockwork Orange, are "unavailable in your geographic location"......If I'm signed out, I can see the book, if I'm signed it, it wont show at all in search results, it knows "oh, he lives THERE? I wont let him have it then".
The internet should be international, my credit card is as good as yours (unless you have a "Black Card")
I dont know how I lived without subscribing to RSS feeds in Firefox. Atop my screen, I have the local newspaper (they only put up 5 or so headlines a day though! lame!), a few blogs, the local tv news channel, slashdot, The Onion, Cult Of Mac, Engadget, Kotaku, Gizmodo, Roughly Drafted, Channel Dvorak, Fake Steve Jobs....
And all of these update automatically, a single click, with command held down to open in a new tab, and BOOM. It just works!(tm Apple)
Remind me again why I should PAY for news? And then to find that a full HALF the newspaper is ads, and the OTHER half is all Associated Press, or news written by another newspaper under the conglomerate.
At first I was let down with the current set of rumours that the Apple tablet would only be a ebook reader....but, if they pull off subscribing to RSS feeds and the browser etc...perhaps with ways to purchase online content, it could truly be the death of physical media. Even if this rumoured tablet doesnt take over the market, it legitimises the market for "digital content".
Slashdot Mirror
As a New Zealander, living in a country of a voluminous FOUR million, it sucks being left out. Yes, the NZ release of the iPad has been announced...but its been a long time for many NZ Apple fans, I bet many worldwide have been annoyed.
:)
The first iPhone sold in NZ was the 3G. I imported an Original iPhone, it ended up costing me $790 NZD ($564 odd USD) all up, and I run it on a prepaid plan, no set monthly costs. The 3G iPhone would have cost over 1000 NZD new, so I saved A LOT of money, *AND* had a product months before it was released in my country. A Win Win situation!
Sadly my iPad will have cost me more than if I had waited, but I stick by my decision to buy an import when I did. I've had my iPad for a couple weeks now, and an extra hundred odd dollars is worth it to me. I remember going slowly insane over the NZ iPhone wait...hearing every single blog on the internet (even the gardening sites!) talk talk talk about the iPhone...how great it is, how wonderful, who needs Jesus when we have this wonderful iPhone....I'd rather pay a couple hundred more than have to put up with that for months, especially when the dates are "to be confirmed".
But hey, if the worst thing you have to whine about in life is that you have to wait a couple months for the latest gadget....perhaps I shouldnt be complaining
Hey 0xdeadbeef (what an unfortunate name, I'm vegan), I was about 12 when the Original iMac came out, I was always more impressed by the USB port (! OMFG, USB !) and on the high end "iMac DV" model, the big differences being it was BLACK,ooooh, and had a graphics card that carried slightly less Fail......but also...the Apple Pro optical mouse! I fell in love with Macs at that point!
My school had old clunkers running Windows 95, the typical Beige Box, this massive tower with a noisy CD drive, and perhaps even a "Turbo" button if you were lucky! Their mouses screwed in with those giant serial connectors (from memory)! So to see this beautiful little see through black soap bar, connecting through an elegant USB port...with its pulsing "HAL 9000" red light.....magic!
The colours were no big deal to me, Bondi Blue I believe.
I dont know what you have against the Republicans. Its best not to bring them up randomly, that can be considered trolling. Lets assume you support the Democrats? Would you like it if you came across someone who was all "the democrats are just like the communists, providing hospital access to people in this country is the same as shooting Uncle Sam and raping the Statue Of Liberty...." ?
Live and let live I say. Now, I am also a New Zealander, I dont live in America, so anything I say about it would be somewhat uninformed (although I probably watch as much US tv/movies as any American), and would be taken harshly.
I've grown up hearing understanding the Republicans to be some sort of evil race that came about at the time of the dinosaurs, that they are "always" about 80 years old, senile, yelling about the damn immigrants to a country built by immigrants, and that the internet is a tool of the devil.
We also hear, through The Simpsons episodes since we were very young, The Daily Show (although its not really on air in NZ anymore! what!) that the Democrats are whiny, rich and white but always concerned about poor and black people, driving a Prius with a Starbucks coffee in one hand, their iPhone in the other, ineffectual....
Stereotypes go both ways, I wouldnt participate in spreading them.
I second that notion, as a New Zealander, the further away from us, the better!
How often do we hear from "Apple fanbois" these days? If you ask me, it seems there are many times more "anti Apple mobs" than fanboys. Just read the comments section of any Youtube video, Engadget, Gizmodo, Kotaku.....entry about an Apple product. Despite the fact there are filters to remove all Apple stories from their view, they screech on and on about how the Poster must be Steve Jobs love slave.
I havnt seen someone post "and this is why Apple is superior as always, the iPod is amazing, the iPhone is marvellous, the iPad is the third wheel on a glorious trilogy of magical childlike wonderment....." in some time.
Its ok if you like Apple, its ok if you dislike Apple. I have mostly Apple gear, I have a friend who is heavily into Windows, he works with that silverlight amongst other MS ideas. He chose to buy some Sony Ericsson with a resistive touch screen running Symbian, I chose my iPhone. He got that bulky lump of plastic after playing with my iPhone, he could have bought an iPhone, but he wanted "an open platform". I'm sure he enjoys the handful of applications that came with the phone, and the knowledge that he could perhaps use the infared transmitter on the phone to change channels on his television...if the transmitter was boosted....
But that was his choice, he seems to regret it now, but I wouldnt "force" him to drink from my flask of Apple Koolaid.
sounds a bit like "why use an iPod Touch (etc) for music when you can get a secondhand cassette player for a couple bucks, and you can easily dub any tapes you find"
I have great hopes for the iPad, although I wish it had more hardware features, I am sure it will be at least a moderate success.
Very funny :) As a 22 year old New Zealander, I sure know I feel safer with my 22 year old friend in his second car, a near top of the line BMW 3 series driving at 160kph (something like 99 miles per hour) than with my grandmother in her Peugeot at very slow speeds! (it was a one off time that he drove that fast on a country road, and I certainly didnt want him to do it, our speed limit on the "open road" is 100kph)
:)
All seriousness aside, I think its very unfair that NZ mainstream media currently has a thing about "boy racers", younger males with fast/ look and sound fast cars, and our centre right wing government has this bright idea to "crush their cars". Instead of perhaps selling the cars and recouping police costs etc, these works of art will be destroyed into a lump of aluminium and steel.
Funny, I was watching "Goodbye Pork Pie", a movie from 1980, where a young man steals a drivers license and money, and becomes an outlaw with a rented Mini! I work with 50+ year olds, and they can admit that "it was fun when we were young", but now "its different" !
We've had this big BS "Americana" celebration recently, with 50 year Detroit bangers belching smoke about my city, with the often retirement age owners talking about "heres some REAL muscle" etc, despite the fact the old junkers would in no way be competitive with modern cars. comparing safety improvements over 50 years in American cars
Myself, I'm just waiting for electric cars to take off! I want my affordable Tesla!
I'm a young New Zealander who doesnt drive, can anyone explain why American cars historically have had/have "super sized" pedals please? What is the point? It sounds awful to me. In New Zealand, we used to have old banger "British Leyland" marques until we became an "elephants graveyard" for Japanese imports. New Zealand's car scene is populated mostly by 10+ year old Japanese imports that wouldnt be anywhere near the current Japanese standards.
In my mind, it would be far better to have smaller, although not *TINY* pedals close-ish together? Instead of slamming your left foot onto the thick slab over there, slamming your right foot at the thick slab way over there....
Wow! Apple invented the MP3 player, the cell phone and the tablet PC! You learn something new every day here on Slashdot! Back in the real world, Apple produce moderately unsucky versions of consumer devices that have been in the market for years, and throw vast amounts of advertising at selling them.
Ok, heres the deal. I live in Soviet New Zealand, we have crappy 3G, still no Kindle, basically no Android devices, certainly not the Droid or Nexus One, JUST got the Tivo (although not the latest version!) and right now, I've gone over my 10GB a month "bandwidth cap" and have been reduced to "dialup speeds". I've really enjoyed watching my network access speeds in Activity Monitor, less than 10KB per second up or down. Wonderful stuff!
:)
In New Zealand, at least the part I live in, we have essentially ZERO Apple advertising. Apple Haters, feel free to move here, you'll love it. We might get an ad or two for the new iPhone, when it comes out, but thats really it. Hey, I wont be surprised if its a year before we get this "iPad"
And yet, if you offered to the average person on the street, a Nexus One/Droid/Pre/Storm 2 in one hand, and an iPhone 3GS in the other, there would be no fsking way that you'd get the iPhone back. Based on a random person, in a country where neither device has been advertised (the non iPhones I mentioned are essentially not even goddam sold here!), I'm very sure the iPhone would be chosen.
I'll let you know in a year or two, when I might get an iPad 3GS++ Pro of my own, but Im quite sure that an uniformed person would absolutely take an iPad over a netbook.
I'll complain as much as the next man when my favourite sites have paywalls erected, but surely news is worth SOMETHING?
:) There is a cost to having journalists and editors and bandwidth and...
News flash: A majority of people online whine and bitch every time they have to pay a cent! No matter what they get, they are always wanting it for free! I have friends who complain bitterly about the price of the iTunes store, almost all songs are between $1.79 and 2.39 NZD, probably the cost of a large bottle of Coke say. "oh, if it were 20 cents a song, THEN I'd buy...", thats right, until the music is priced at some useless amount, they "refuse to pay that exorbitant fee" ! Bittorrenting/Rapidsharing (heh) everything that was ever produced.
I say, C'mon! A couple bucks for a song is chump change! What does "1.79" buy you anyway?
I dont see myself lining up to pay for news - shouldnt advertising take care of that sort of thing? -, but if a company wants to charge you "$1" for access, who are you to complain? By all means, feel free to start your own news company offering access for "99c"
I support many free sites, I love contributing to Wikipedia and cant see myself "buying an encyclopedia", but there is a cost to producing material, online or in dead tree form, so why complain about giving some of your change to pay for an everlasting good? (a song cant be emptied like a bottle of Coke)
the first genuine LOL of the week, (it is monday mind you). Thank you.
I remember watching the Engadget review video of the Nexus One, and the iPhone blitzed both Android devices (Droid, N1)
:)
http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/04/nexus-one-review/
You can say all you want about screen resolutions, fact is, if you want to use the internet, the iPhone zips way out in front for loading times, and has a more accurate touchscreen, it lets you get the job done faster. I am used to higher resolution displays, and can see how photos etc would look better, but sight unseen, I dont know if I'd prefer prettier banner ads over a fast and easier to use browser.
I've wanted to play around with a Nexus One, as an "Apple Fanboi", I think its great that the iPhone is starting to get competition. Its a joke at the moment though, I dont even really think Android phones are sold in NZ? I think theres one or two, tucked away somewhere at the carrier store, only advertised as "With Google". "but my phone already does Google Search!"
Sure, I also like the more ...esoteric...devices to be covered, but in "mainstream tech news", I understand and enjoy hearing about the commercially successful products. I come to Slashdot for more technical coverage.
Every now and then I read a local newspaper, I could never imagine subscribing to a newspaper, the "tech page" comes ONLY on thursday, is often half a page, perhaps a full page if lucky, and mostly AP stories. Often it has some rather stupid stories that will go nowhere. I'd rather hear opinion about the future of cellphone OS's, or the future of media etc (in a newspaper?! lol) instead of these rather lameduck stories.
:)
With the iPad, I thought the stories were mostly "IT SUX!111!!!!", because it wasnt as great as the incredible hype, or jokes about the name.
I think the Kindle deserved/deserves news, dont you? I always enjoy hearing about it, and I considered buying one....oh yeah, but they are not on sale in my country! Way to go Amazon!
I see the iPad as deserving lots of coverage, as its going to be a real product, from an amazingly hot company, and it could truly be a "-killer" product. iPad seems to have the best of the Microsoft Surface table, and the Kindle, built into one device, I'd imagine it being awesome for photo viewing, web surfing, Google Maps and perhaps the book feature. Its a real product, it will be actually available worldwide... and I can imagine myself getting one.
Of course, I was hoping it would be more "newton" like rather than "a big ass iPod Touch", with handwriting recognition, but Apple doesnt owe me anything so I cant complain
I absolutely understand that, but I was meaning the general "the iPhone has no coverage" BS as being AT&T that has "no coverage" :)
The complaints that "the iPhone drops calls/has no coverage" seem to exist only in the USA, on AT&T...
Granted, I dont make many phonecalls at all, but I've never really heard of people in NZ complaining of dropped calls (except perhaps if they "drove into a tunnel" or were in a rural part of the country, 3% of NZ doesnt have coverage)
I absolutely know what you mean :)
:)
But, without the iPhone, and Apple in general, what would the "mainstream tech news" be about? "oooh, facebook changed its privacy settings again"...? Tivo? Dell has a sale on, and you can save $5 bucks on a netbook? These are not very exciting topics, probably wouldnt get much traffic
Big product launches, such as new cellphones, deserve at least some major attention. I'm an iPhone user, but I enjoy reading Android coverage, and I read what I can about the Palm Pre. Although, Android OS phones and the Pre are not really on sale here in NZ, its not much fun reading about things we cant really buy!
I believe Engadget has a "no iPhone filter", perhaps filters should become a standard option across websites, so you would be able to filter out everything you dont like, perhaps building your own coverage through various RSS feeds strung together on a "home" page.
I agree, my point is, theres all this raw HATE for the iPhone, much of it from bitter people who for whatever reason cannot have an iPhone, and "the coverage sucks" is a very common complaint I hear.
The problem is not with the phone, its that damn AT&T network in the USA. I hope people remember, Apple supposedly went to Verizon first
From what I understand, Verizon is the best US network, and the iPhone is a very desirable phone (anywhere in the world), if the two met, it would be a marvellous thing.
I know it sucks having "locked" phones, most of the world has "unlocked" phones, you can easily run any iPhone 3G or 3GS on any of the three networks here in New Zealand, just throw the sim card in, boom!
Its AT&T that sucks for reception
these people who complain about low signal strength with their iPhones, are they on AT&T? I live in New Zealand, I have a jailbroken Original iPhone running on Vodafone and it works just fine...As you know, the Original iPhone is 2G, but that shouldnt matter, if you are talking about dropped calls etc?
I believe all the iPhone troubles, to be the fault of AT&T, since nowhere else in the world do iPhones seem to have as much as trouble!
I've got work soon so I'll keep this brief.
You have a problem with "peace activists"? Are you incredibly "hawkish" or something?
RE "socialised medicine", ooh, sounds scary doesnt it! Ha, why dont you just call it "soviet-ized medicine", since the whole point is to aggravate McCarthyism. Call it "universial healthcare", or better yet, call it "healthcare", as thats what pretty much every other country in the world would call it.
You really must understand this. In New Zealand we have the "public" option, which is the "universal healthcare", and yes, in some cases, maybe quite a few cases, its underfunded and there are shortages. But ya know what? If you have the money, you can go "private" and beat the waiting lines! Ha! So, thats pretty much the perfect system right? The people who cant pay, they get their lives saved, instead of dying, the people who can pay, do just that... where is your problem?
RE the pregnant women story, I remember that, and they could have went "private".
For cripes sake man, drop the "socialised medicine" strawman! Yes, in soviet New Zealand, we all have one blunt plastic knife, fork and spoon per neighbourhood, I havnt been able to eat my breakfast of a cold army ration yet because I'm not scheduled to use the utensils until 2AM next Tuesday morning...
I agree with many of the things you have said, but would like to mention again the Rainbow Warrior. When that was sunk, by the French, presumably to prevent it being used to protest their nuclear tests "in the neighbourhood", it strengthened NZ public opinion almost infinitely against Nuclear anything.
The Sinking Of The Rainbow Warrior was a life changing experience for many NZers, the feeling that we were invaded by a secret service from a much larger country, that they would come here and blow up a peaceful ship that protested their nearby explosions... very, very, very bad PR for all things Nuclear.
Right, so a country of 4 million odd, standing up against a country of 300 million odd, a country that, "pound for pound" has us beat many times over, a country that declares itself "the only superpower" in the world, that invades other countries of the slightest of pretences....we stand up and say "we dont want your, in our opinion, dangerous shit in our ports", and thats cowardly?!?
Evolution Denial is one manifestation of gross stupidity, while the Nuclear Free Berkeley Act and the Oppressive States Compliance Resolution are others.
My whole country is Nuclear Free, does that make us guilty of "gross stupidity"?
I've always been fairly "pro nuclear", and NZ still has radioactive elements in smoke detectors, medical equipment etc....being "Nuclear Free" hasnt caused us to be terribly backwards in any way I can tell?
ha, we have that in New Zealand as the redubbed/edited/something "MXC" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MXC
heh, your laser pointer analogy made me laugh, I have a cheap green laser pointer and it leaves an obvious green beam, which is about the easiest light source in the world to follow :) Keeping with the analogy, with a flashlight, its a larger light source, the laser pointer is like saying "the attacker is at the other end of this perfectly narrow and straight line" :)
I understand what you mean about more modern radar though.
I dont like putting myself in the armchair expert role, but I'd like to mention something. Wasnt the whole point of the F22 to be pretty much the "baddest" aircraft in the air? The whole point of it is to be complimented by F35 and F15's...
I think its fair to say that ITS POSSIBLE for Russian aircraft to surpass American aircraft, its happened a few times before...I believe there are stories about certain cold war era soviet fighters being infinitely more manoeuvrable? Able to perform stunts that could not possibly be matched by US planes?
The F22 was never meant to be dirt cheap, and flying in fleets of a thousands, it was meant to be special, to be stealthier, to be faster, to be deadlier than any other plane it would go up against. If its not those things....which COULD be possible....then its not really useful?
Not that interesting; the Stinger is a piece of crap designed to be a man-portable SAM; it isn't really comparable to a proper air-to-air missile that the MiG was armed with
Ha, so remind us why the US pilot of the drone decided to hang around and fire at the obviously superior foxbat?
I actually enjoy purchasing music through iTunes, when you have such a low price point ($1.79-2.39 NZD) per song, why bother finding torrents and having the police knock down your door?
I also love buying iPhone apps, I would never consider stealing the dollar or two that the average App costs.
Recently, the thing thats screwed me over is Audiobooks, they are near impossible to get here? Audible lets me have an account, but books I wanted, even very well known ones like A Clockwork Orange, are "unavailable in your geographic location"......If I'm signed out, I can see the book, if I'm signed it, it wont show at all in search results, it knows "oh, he lives THERE? I wont let him have it then".
The internet should be international, my credit card is as good as yours (unless you have a "Black Card")
I dont know how I lived without subscribing to RSS feeds in Firefox. Atop my screen, I have the local newspaper (they only put up 5 or so headlines a day though! lame!), a few blogs, the local tv news channel, slashdot, The Onion, Cult Of Mac, Engadget, Kotaku, Gizmodo, Roughly Drafted, Channel Dvorak, Fake Steve Jobs....
And all of these update automatically, a single click, with command held down to open in a new tab, and BOOM. It just works!(tm Apple)
Remind me again why I should PAY for news? And then to find that a full HALF the newspaper is ads, and the OTHER half is all Associated Press, or news written by another newspaper under the conglomerate.
At first I was let down with the current set of rumours that the Apple tablet would only be a ebook reader....but, if they pull off subscribing to RSS feeds and the browser etc...perhaps with ways to purchase online content, it could truly be the death of physical media. Even if this rumoured tablet doesnt take over the market, it legitimises the market for "digital content".