In that case, prepare for "much abuse" to be aimed in your direction when a newer, snazzier iPhone is released in 2009.
I think you should hold off on your purchase in anticipation of the next model. In the meantime, maybe you can fashion your own smartphone by duct-taping a Palm V, a Creative Zen and an old Nokia together. Think of what a rebel you'd be then!
Why would I feel stupid? I've had a great phone/iPod/EDGE web-surfing gadget for a year, and have enjoyed it thoroughly. Once the new one is available for sale, I'll have a great phone/iPod/3G web-surfing gadget which I'm sure I'll enjoy just as thoroughly, and my wife will inherit the EDGE version (her old Motorola U6 is long overdue for a replacement anyway).
What makes you think I would expect innovation to come to a grinding halt just because I've spent a bit of cash on a gadget? I bought the iPhone with the understanding that it would be replaced with a newer, more-feature-packed model sooner rather than later (taking into account the almost-annual new-iPod release cycle).
What would you recommend to folks considering the iPhone 3G? That they hold off on buying it, because it's eventually going to be replaced by a cooler model anyway?
I salute for having the courage to voice your opposing viewpoint in the face of such adversity, O anonymous Totally-Not-A-MediaSentry-Employee contributer.
So tell me, how did you set up this DOS?
Did I say "you"? I meant to say "they", of course. Apologies.
You shouldn't have posted as AC...you should take credit for a comment this great!
I'm picturing John Cusack standing in the rain, serenading Ione Skye with the fan-whirring and hard drive-clicking of a blade server held over his head.
Yep, HIPPA's the reason my ThinkPad's got full-disk encryption with a 20-char-minimum password (which must also use lowercase, uppercase and special chars).
Booting up every morning is like an alertness check...not having enough caffeine coursing through one's veins results in "Incorrect password, please try again. Failed Attempts = 2".
I hope you sent this from a Kinkos or a public library 2 towns over, while wearing a Nixon mask & gloves.
If you sent it from home or work, well, enjoy your flight...I've heard Syria's beautiful this time of year, but that darn black hood over your head might keep you from enjoying the scenery.
We're on the same wavelength - I initially had included the 4th Amendment in my original comment.
However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this would probably be followed to a tee in this scenario...only the probable cause would come from some potentially bogus IP/date/time data acquired (most likely sans subpoena) from an ISP as the behest of the **AA's legal goon squad, and would be used to get a quickie warrant issued by the "right" (translation: sympathetic to corporate interests & a cronie of the administration) judge.
As I type this, I feel like I should be wearing a tin foil hat, but honestly, it seems too cut & dry to be too far off.
No person...shall...be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
I understand here that "due process of law" is actually being changed to make this legal, but I feel that the following serves to define "due process of law" in a way:
Amendment VII
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
Would you blame Comcast, Comedy Central, HBO, Cartoon Network & the studios that pump out TV show DVD box sets for the lazy sack of crap that fails out of college because he'd rather sit on his duff watching TV than go to classes or study?
Likening cocaine to video games is a ridiculous comparison. In cases where someone drops out of school 2 weeks before graduation because they'd rather play a video game, it is most definitely NOT a 2-way street - 100% of the blame lies on the kid, not the game.
He did fix the problem in a way that was suitable to him. And he's the guy who uses the laptop and must've been happy with his cheap fix.
In this scenario, it doesn't matter that his solution was "suitable to him", or that "he's the guy who uses the laptop"...the fact of the matter is that he doesn't OWN the laptop, the university does. So basically he borrowed the laptop and broke it to suit his whims. That's generally not acceptable.
If you lent your laptop to a friend, and he brought it back with buttons crudely torn out because they were getting in his way, would you commend him on his clever workaround? Likely not (unless you have very little regard for your valuable belongings).
I'm sure that in whatever field he's a professor in, he probably doesn't make fun of you for not understanding something.
It sounds like the GP understands quite clearly: this professor damaged university property. If I was a student in this professor's class, and decided one day to demolish his overhead projector because it was blocking my view of the whiteboard (assuming professors still use overhead projectors & whiteboards...if not, substitute your own analogy;) ), would he be wrong to be upset with me? Or would his displeasure merely demonstrate his lack of understanding?
He probably wouldn't even make fun of your poor choice of words with "Gods know".
Ah, the ad hominem attack...I now feel that I might be feeding a troll. Oh well, I've typed too much to delete it all, so I soldier on....
Yours is a problem that many people have. Once you understand something, you can't understand how someone else doesn't understand that problem. Different strokes for different folks.
Once again, I fail to see the GP's "problem"...he's stating that this professor damaged university property. Are either one of us missing something? "Different strokes for different folks" is completely invalid in this situation; the professor's "strokes" violated the ownership rights (and probably the terms of use) of the "folks" who owned the laptop.
...couldn't this result in less-lucrative media (newspapers, for one) getting neglected or severely declining (more so than they are now) in quality?
I keep hearing about how newspapers are losing money left & right these days, so I would think that being owned by an entity that can make their money elsewhere to offset any losses might help buoy up the newspaper...at least the company can look at it as a "halo product".
If a company has to choose between owning a newspaper and owning a TV station, I'd imagine they would dump the newspaper in a heartbeat...and the paper's new buyer would likely fill it to the bursting point with ads just to make ends meet.
I dig this idea in theory, but I just don't see a good outcome if it's implemented.
1) the ability to send a text message to more than one person at a time. If I'm meeting 7 people at the bar, I don't want to type & send "I'm at the bar, I got us a table in the back" 7 times.
2) the ability to forward a previously-sent text message to someone else.
3) drag-and-drop song/video transfers from iTunes (which is how iPods already work...I drag-and-drop songs from iTunes to my wife's 2nd-gen iPod nano all the time, so why can't I do the same thing with my iPhone?!).
4) the AutoCorrect functionality to be reversed - if I want to use the suggested word, I select the popup. Right now it's the other way around, which doesn't make sense.
5) the ability to change the order that in which phone numbers show up for a contact - for example, if I want "Work" to show up before "Home", I should be able to press "Edit" and move them around, the way I can move songs within an On The Go playlist.
6) to be able to specify which alerts I hear for new text messages, new e-mails, etc..
7) better native Gmail support.
8) a headphone jack that accepts most headphone cables without an adapter (seriously, would it be so bad to make the diameter of the recess in the case a few millimeters bigger?)
9) the damn thing to work with my Griffin iTrip Auto. Why is it incompatible? Was it necessary to make the iPhone's dock connector function differently than the iPod's, at least as far as audio output is concerned?
10) the option to turn off specific aspects of syncing...for example, I want it to sync contacts, calendar entries, songs, videos, and always backup e-mail & text messages, but I'd prefer to manually sync photos (I don't use the camera feature very often, so it's annoying to have iPhoto popup everytime I sync).
Unless there's something I don't know (which is very possible), I think these are all pretty reasonable requests that could easily be fixed in the next version. Hell, a lot of these are software-related and could be fixed for this version. I've never sent or received an MMS, but I see a lot of people calling for this functionality, so I guess it would be nice if they threw that in too.
As far as improvements, I'd love to see GPS & 3G. I know, I should join the club.
How are these different than any other site's ads?
on
Google Unveils Flash Ads
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
These are the same busy, annoying ads that other sites have plastered all over...putting them next to a paragraph where the ad's designers justify their use of "artistic" flashing/blinking colors makes them no better than the aforementioned "Punch the monkey, win a ringtone" ads found elsewhere.
My hope is that Google bigshots will see what an ugly, terrible effect these have on what their former, critically-acclaimed, clean, simple interface, and will do an about-face.
I do realize how slim the odds of that happening actually are...I guess when one's pupils/irises turn into dollar signs like in the cartoons, one's vision tends to become a bit impaired.
I wonder how the integrated voice chat in WoW's upcoming patch will affect the adoption of Xfire's beta voice chat feature.
Also, I'm probably the wrong demographic for Xfire (as kids these days seem to be able to multi-task with the chatting, texting, gaming, etc. all at the same time like nobody's business), but I can't seem to discover the secret to actively playing a game while IMing multiple friends...that'd be a one way ticket to the graveyard for me.
I just wanted to recap some of the more prevalent comments I've read here in this thread:
1) The fact that the iPhone has a sleep/wake button is unacceptable, because it "should" be an on/off button (ignoring the fact that every other smartphone, hell, and every TV & A/V component made in the last 15 years, operates EXACTLY the same way).
2) Users should NOT have to read the manual to fully understand how the iPhone works (despite the fact that "RTFM" would be tossed around with alarming regularity in almost all other situations).
3) The iPhone continues to check e-mail while asleep (does any smartphone NOT check e-mail while asleep, when it is still receptive to incoming calls/text messages?).
4) The fact that the iPhone has a sleep mode that is different than "fully off" is a major design flaw, and its existence is simply unconscionable (as mentioned earlier in this list, sleep mode is pretty standard on electronic devices these days).
5) Calling the setting that turns off all radio transmission/reception "Airplane Mode" is counterintuitive & deceptive because users won't know to use it when they're on a boat (even though "Airplane Mode" has been the standard name for this setting at least for the last 5 years, and using even the smallest amount of common sense would cause one to use this setting in all situations where radio use is to be avoided).
6) Apple & AT&T are basically mugging people, because the iPhone is not laden with warnings to inform users how their wireless service works (I've had phones purchased from Cingular/AT&T & unlocked phones purchased from 3rd parties in the past, when I took them abroad none of them ever told me I was entering an international roaming area...again, with a smidge of common sense one would notice that it no longer says "AT&T" next to the signal strength indicator and would assume that that's financially bad news).
Are you people serious? How can you type this stuff without feeling the least bit silly? Has the anti-Apple, anti-iPhone stance so blinded you to the fact that, behind the big, flashy screen, gee-whiz functionality and prominent Apple logo (and, until last week, the absurd price tag), the iPhone is basically IDENTICAL to just about every other smartphone (and majority of cellphones) out there? I mean, I expect a certain amount of schadenfreude and Jobs-bashing in a thread like this, but some of these comments have crossed right through the Laughable Town and have landed firmly in the Land of Pathetically Grasping At Straws.
Now many of you have called bullshit on those that have used these arguments, and it's admirable that, regardless of how you feel about the iPhone, Apple, Steve Jobs, the city of Cupertino, or anything else that could color your judgement, you've been able to put all that aside and objectively state that, in this case, the user was an idiot and deserved to get hit with the giant phone bill. Sadly, your voices of reason were drowned out by repetitive/redundant crazy talk.
I was trying to sound pretentious and it would appear that I succeeded. I do think I'm smarter and better read than most of the chattering classes. So thanks for saying I hit exactly where I was aiming at.
Well done. Now you can go home & tell your cats just how clever you were today.
That's correct, the iPhone cannot use the SIM cards that are used by T-mobile.
However, it DOES use the SIM cards that are used by AT&T Wireless.
The iPhone does operate on AT&T's GSM network, and requires a SIM card to do so, and said SIM card is inserted in the SIM card slot.
I'm fairly certain that what Walt was trying to say is that the iPhone is locked down, so that it will only work with AT&T's SIM cards (much like every other GSM phone purchased from AT&T Wireless).
Free nights & weekends seem to be a staple among wireless plans...but I don't see any mention of it in the iPhone plans.
I have free nights & weekends with AT&T now (which start at 7pm, which usually costs $10/mo. extra, but they threw me a bone to apologize for some chronically lousy service a while back...normally they start at 9pm, I believe)...but since I rarely exceed 300 minutes/month, not having them isn't much of a deal-breaker for me.
However, I don't understand why they wouldn't include that feature in the iPhone plans...they're already including unlimited data use, why not just throw in some unlimited voice use during off hours, like they do with all their "normal" plans? Would that break the bank, or are they afraid all their anticipated new customers will overwhelm their systems?
Like I said, this doesn't affect me too much, but it does strike me as a big odd.
Slashdot Mirror
In that case, prepare for "much abuse" to be aimed in your direction when a newer, snazzier iPhone is released in 2009.
I think you should hold off on your purchase in anticipation of the next model. In the meantime, maybe you can fashion your own smartphone by duct-taping a Palm V, a Creative Zen and an old Nokia together. Think of what a rebel you'd be then!
Why would I feel stupid? I've had a great phone/iPod/EDGE web-surfing gadget for a year, and have enjoyed it thoroughly. Once the new one is available for sale, I'll have a great phone/iPod/3G web-surfing gadget which I'm sure I'll enjoy just as thoroughly, and my wife will inherit the EDGE version (her old Motorola U6 is long overdue for a replacement anyway).
What makes you think I would expect innovation to come to a grinding halt just because I've spent a bit of cash on a gadget? I bought the iPhone with the understanding that it would be replaced with a newer, more-feature-packed model sooner rather than later (taking into account the almost-annual new-iPod release cycle).
What would you recommend to folks considering the iPhone 3G? That they hold off on buying it, because it's eventually going to be replaced by a cooler model anyway?
I salute for having the courage to voice your opposing viewpoint in the face of such adversity, O anonymous Totally-Not-A-MediaSentry-Employee contributer.
So tell me, how did you set up this DOS?
Did I say "you"? I meant to say "they", of course. Apologies.
You shouldn't have posted as AC...you should take credit for a comment this great!
I'm picturing John Cusack standing in the rain, serenading Ione Skye with the fan-whirring and hard drive-clicking of a blade server held over his head.
Yep, HIPPA's the reason my ThinkPad's got full-disk encryption with a 20-char-minimum password (which must also use lowercase, uppercase and special chars).
Booting up every morning is like an alertness check...not having enough caffeine coursing through one's veins results in "Incorrect password, please try again. Failed Attempts = 2".
I work in the insurance industry, by the way.
I hope you sent this from a Kinkos or a public library 2 towns over, while wearing a Nixon mask & gloves.
If you sent it from home or work, well, enjoy your flight...I've heard Syria's beautiful this time of year, but that darn black hood over your head might keep you from enjoying the scenery.
We're on the same wavelength - I initially had included the 4th Amendment in my original comment.
However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this would probably be followed to a tee in this scenario...only the probable cause would come from some potentially bogus IP/date/time data acquired (most likely sans subpoena) from an ISP as the behest of the **AA's legal goon squad, and would be used to get a quickie warrant issued by the "right" (translation: sympathetic to corporate interests & a cronie of the administration) judge.
As I type this, I feel like I should be wearing a tin foil hat, but honestly, it seems too cut & dry to be too far off.
Amendment V
No person...shall...be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
I understand here that "due process of law" is actually being changed to make this legal, but I feel that the following serves to define "due process of law" in a way:
Amendment VII
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
I mis-moderated someone's post (meant to mod it 'Funny', mouse slipped & I ended up modding it 'Overrated'), so I'm posting to undo this mistake.
Would you blame Comcast, Comedy Central, HBO, Cartoon Network & the studios that pump out TV show DVD box sets for the lazy sack of crap that fails out of college because he'd rather sit on his duff watching TV than go to classes or study?
Likening cocaine to video games is a ridiculous comparison. In cases where someone drops out of school 2 weeks before graduation because they'd rather play a video game, it is most definitely NOT a 2-way street - 100% of the blame lies on the kid, not the game.
Initially I was pretty confused, but now that I get it, it's pretty funny :)
He did fix the problem in a way that was suitable to him. And he's the guy who uses the laptop and must've been happy with his cheap fix.
In this scenario, it doesn't matter that his solution was "suitable to him", or that "he's the guy who uses the laptop"...the fact of the matter is that he doesn't OWN the laptop, the university does. So basically he borrowed the laptop and broke it to suit his whims. That's generally not acceptable.
If you lent your laptop to a friend, and he brought it back with buttons crudely torn out because they were getting in his way, would you commend him on his clever workaround? Likely not (unless you have very little regard for your valuable belongings).
I'm sure that in whatever field he's a professor in, he probably doesn't make fun of you for not understanding something.
It sounds like the GP understands quite clearly: this professor damaged university property. If I was a student in this professor's class, and decided one day to demolish his overhead projector because it was blocking my view of the whiteboard (assuming professors still use overhead projectors & whiteboards...if not, substitute your own analogy ;) ), would he be wrong to be upset with me? Or would his displeasure merely demonstrate his lack of understanding?
He probably wouldn't even make fun of your poor choice of words with "Gods know".
Ah, the ad hominem attack...I now feel that I might be feeding a troll. Oh well, I've typed too much to delete it all, so I soldier on....
Yours is a problem that many people have. Once you understand something, you can't understand how someone else doesn't understand that problem. Different strokes for different folks.
Once again, I fail to see the GP's "problem"...he's stating that this professor damaged university property. Are either one of us missing something? "Different strokes for different folks" is completely invalid in this situation; the professor's "strokes" violated the ownership rights (and probably the terms of use) of the "folks" who owned the laptop.
...couldn't this result in less-lucrative media (newspapers, for one) getting neglected or severely declining (more so than they are now) in quality?
I keep hearing about how newspapers are losing money left & right these days, so I would think that being owned by an entity that can make their money elsewhere to offset any losses might help buoy up the newspaper...at least the company can look at it as a "halo product".
If a company has to choose between owning a newspaper and owning a TV station, I'd imagine they would dump the newspaper in a heartbeat...and the paper's new buyer would likely fill it to the bursting point with ads just to make ends meet.
I dig this idea in theory, but I just don't see a good outcome if it's implemented.
1) the ability to send a text message to more than one person at a time. If I'm meeting 7 people at the bar, I don't want to type & send "I'm at the bar, I got us a table in the back" 7 times.
2) the ability to forward a previously-sent text message to someone else.
3) drag-and-drop song/video transfers from iTunes (which is how iPods already work...I drag-and-drop songs from iTunes to my wife's 2nd-gen iPod nano all the time, so why can't I do the same thing with my iPhone?!).
4) the AutoCorrect functionality to be reversed - if I want to use the suggested word, I select the popup. Right now it's the other way around, which doesn't make sense.
5) the ability to change the order that in which phone numbers show up for a contact - for example, if I want "Work" to show up before "Home", I should be able to press "Edit" and move them around, the way I can move songs within an On The Go playlist.
6) to be able to specify which alerts I hear for new text messages, new e-mails, etc..
7) better native Gmail support.
8) a headphone jack that accepts most headphone cables without an adapter (seriously, would it be so bad to make the diameter of the recess in the case a few millimeters bigger?)
9) the damn thing to work with my Griffin iTrip Auto. Why is it incompatible? Was it necessary to make the iPhone's dock connector function differently than the iPod's, at least as far as audio output is concerned?
10) the option to turn off specific aspects of syncing...for example, I want it to sync contacts, calendar entries, songs, videos, and always backup e-mail & text messages, but I'd prefer to manually sync photos (I don't use the camera feature very often, so it's annoying to have iPhoto popup everytime I sync).
Unless there's something I don't know (which is very possible), I think these are all pretty reasonable requests that could easily be fixed in the next version. Hell, a lot of these are software-related and could be fixed for this version. I've never sent or received an MMS, but I see a lot of people calling for this functionality, so I guess it would be nice if they threw that in too.
As far as improvements, I'd love to see GPS & 3G. I know, I should join the club.
These are the same busy, annoying ads that other sites have plastered all over...putting them next to a paragraph where the ad's designers justify their use of "artistic" flashing/blinking colors makes them no better than the aforementioned "Punch the monkey, win a ringtone" ads found elsewhere.
My hope is that Google bigshots will see what an ugly, terrible effect these have on what their former, critically-acclaimed, clean, simple interface, and will do an about-face.
I do realize how slim the odds of that happening actually are...I guess when one's pupils/irises turn into dollar signs like in the cartoons, one's vision tends to become a bit impaired.
I wonder how the integrated voice chat in WoW's upcoming patch will affect the adoption of Xfire's beta voice chat feature.
Also, I'm probably the wrong demographic for Xfire (as kids these days seem to be able to multi-task with the chatting, texting, gaming, etc. all at the same time like nobody's business), but I can't seem to discover the secret to actively playing a game while IMing multiple friends...that'd be a one way ticket to the graveyard for me.
You got this attitude from your mom while she was a clerk at the DMV, right?
I don't get it. Were you trying to insult me? Weak. You fail.
I just wanted to recap some of the more prevalent comments I've read here in this thread:
1) The fact that the iPhone has a sleep/wake button is unacceptable, because it "should" be an on/off button (ignoring the fact that every other smartphone, hell, and every TV & A/V component made in the last 15 years, operates EXACTLY the same way).
2) Users should NOT have to read the manual to fully understand how the iPhone works (despite the fact that "RTFM" would be tossed around with alarming regularity in almost all other situations).
3) The iPhone continues to check e-mail while asleep (does any smartphone NOT check e-mail while asleep, when it is still receptive to incoming calls/text messages?).
4) The fact that the iPhone has a sleep mode that is different than "fully off" is a major design flaw, and its existence is simply unconscionable (as mentioned earlier in this list, sleep mode is pretty standard on electronic devices these days).
5) Calling the setting that turns off all radio transmission/reception "Airplane Mode" is counterintuitive & deceptive because users won't know to use it when they're on a boat (even though "Airplane Mode" has been the standard name for this setting at least for the last 5 years, and using even the smallest amount of common sense would cause one to use this setting in all situations where radio use is to be avoided).
6) Apple & AT&T are basically mugging people, because the iPhone is not laden with warnings to inform users how their wireless service works (I've had phones purchased from Cingular/AT&T & unlocked phones purchased from 3rd parties in the past, when I took them abroad none of them ever told me I was entering an international roaming area...again, with a smidge of common sense one would notice that it no longer says "AT&T" next to the signal strength indicator and would assume that that's financially bad news).
Are you people serious? How can you type this stuff without feeling the least bit silly? Has the anti-Apple, anti-iPhone stance so blinded you to the fact that, behind the big, flashy screen, gee-whiz functionality and prominent Apple logo (and, until last week, the absurd price tag), the iPhone is basically IDENTICAL to just about every other smartphone (and majority of cellphones) out there? I mean, I expect a certain amount of schadenfreude and Jobs-bashing in a thread like this, but some of these comments have crossed right through the Laughable Town and have landed firmly in the Land of Pathetically Grasping At Straws.
Now many of you have called bullshit on those that have used these arguments, and it's admirable that, regardless of how you feel about the iPhone, Apple, Steve Jobs, the city of Cupertino, or anything else that could color your judgement, you've been able to put all that aside and objectively state that, in this case, the user was an idiot and deserved to get hit with the giant phone bill. Sadly, your voices of reason were drowned out by repetitive/redundant crazy talk.
But were you really turned off, or just in standby mode?
Awesome.
I was trying to sound pretentious and it would appear that I succeeded. I do think I'm smarter and better read than most of the chattering classes. So thanks for saying I hit exactly where I was aiming at.
Well done. Now you can go home & tell your cats just how clever you were today.
I can't decide what's funnier here: the comment, or the fact that it was modded +1 Informative.
The combination of the two gave me the giggles though.
That's correct, the iPhone cannot use the SIM cards that are used by T-mobile.
However, it DOES use the SIM cards that are used by AT&T Wireless.
The iPhone does operate on AT&T's GSM network, and requires a SIM card to do so, and said SIM card is inserted in the SIM card slot.
I'm fairly certain that what Walt was trying to say is that the iPhone is locked down, so that it will only work with AT&T's SIM cards (much like every other GSM phone purchased from AT&T Wireless).
I went back & looked at it after Therlin responded & pointed it out...clearly my mad reading comprehension skillz failed me this morning :)
I just took a second look at the chart - you are 100% correct.
Clearly I need to brush up on my literacy skills.
Thanks for pointing out my mistake without flaming me :)
Free nights & weekends seem to be a staple among wireless plans...but I don't see any mention of it in the iPhone plans.
I have free nights & weekends with AT&T now (which start at 7pm, which usually costs $10/mo. extra, but they threw me a bone to apologize for some chronically lousy service a while back...normally they start at 9pm, I believe)...but since I rarely exceed 300 minutes/month, not having them isn't much of a deal-breaker for me.
However, I don't understand why they wouldn't include that feature in the iPhone plans...they're already including unlimited data use, why not just throw in some unlimited voice use during off hours, like they do with all their "normal" plans? Would that break the bank, or are they afraid all their anticipated new customers will overwhelm their systems?
Like I said, this doesn't affect me too much, but it does strike me as a big odd.