1 - The app was free; 2 - Siri was supposed to be a distinctive feature of the iPhone 4S and iOS 5, so it would be pretty bad if it was half-assed; 3 - Given how much negative press they got from the antenna problems on the iPhone 4 (problems shared by other brands as well, including Nokia who joked about it, and that unknowingly to many people are caused by the FCC making requirements regarding antennas being positioned at the bottom, something that the iPhone 4S partly worked around by extending a smaller secondary antenna to the top this time, which the FCC miraculously approved), it is natural that they are now extra careful about quality assurance when releasing anything to the market.
The capability exists on any modern cell phone, they're all full of sensors. Two cameras facing different ways, one or two microphones, location data from GPS and AGPS, touch-screens, accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetometers, light-sensors, and proximity-sensors all permanently connected to a network, and most likely to the Internet as well. If a government agency wanted to have every phone in the world bugged, they could. There's no way for most people, even the teardown crowd, to tell what's in a SOC, and there's plenty of software for which you don't have the source due to regulatory reasons, even on the most open of devices, such as the Nokia N9, like the baseband...
If you are that suspicious and have reasons to hide anything from a government, refrain from appearing in public places (at least without a face mask, which serves two purposes: prevents others from seeing you and bits of your skin from falling off), remove all your body hair in order to reduce the chances of leaving DNA samples behind, wear gloves all the time to avoid leaving fingerprints behind, carry a bag with disposable plastic utensils for your own use, and find a way to safely dispose of them after use, possibly as far away from your base as you possibly can, so that nobody can track you down from traces of saliva in your utensils.
Even then, there are still personal traits that can't be avoided, such as the way you move, your voice, and your smell.
Quote a reference, please. Also explain why Macs aren't selling that much better despite having an Apple logo in the back too, some of them even illuminated, with new versions coming out all the time.
How do you know sound quality is no different? Are you comparing the audio that Siri receives to the audio that the other voice recognition software receives? Are you comparing their performance in noisy environments? Are you trolling? Or are you simply clueless?
I know this will be pretty shocking for you to learn: but copyright laws give authors the right to revoke previously granted licenses at their own discretion, plus software is not subject to any kind of warranties, not even warranties of fitness for particular purposes anywhere I know. The remaining factual errors in your post have already been addressed, so I won't get into them myself.
I use Siri to set up reminders all the time, anywhere I go, it is a lot simpler than using the visual interface, plus I can interact with the phone in my pocket while listening to music.
Me: "Remind me about umbrella when I leave." Siri: "OK, here's your a reminder for when you leave your current location, it reads: Umbrella. Shall I create it?" Me: "Yes." Siri: "OK, I will remind you."
It's also very useful for taking notes, switching playlists, and calling people. I wish it would also read reminders, notes, and text messages that are not new out loud, but hey, it's beta!
Or they could just not implement it in devices that do not have the hardware acceleration in order to avoid unnecessary power consumption due to audio processing on a general purpose CPU, which is what they did. It's called quality assurance, and is the reason why many other iOS 5 features are not available on the 3GS either.
Except that it backs up in one device and magically restores in all the others. It's amazing because it's the first time the consumer market sees this kind of tightly integrated and properly built syncing.
iPhone 4S - Technically Yes, actually NO. The modem will do both, however is locked out of the factory to a carrier and can't be changed. Plus, Sprint and Verizon only allows phones they sell on their network.
My iPhone 4S isn't locked to any carrier, I bought it unlocked from Apple. How much stupidity is one required to correct in a single thread?
one phone for all bands? so you can get the phone and use it on any network with have to buy a ATT or sprint one like the iphone. No having the phone locked to the carrier you choose.
My iPhone 4S works with any carrier...
No. The iPhone 4S can work with any carrier in general, for the most part. A specific one cannot though, since there is a GSM model and a CDMA model. You either have the GSM or CDMA model in one phone, not both. You could however own both models...
Don't correct me when you clearly don't know what you're talking about and read the specification.
Nokia has been preparing their Windows Phone 7 line-up. Their Nokia Lumia smart phone has beat sales in many European countries and Australia in December and November, even topping iPhone and every Android phone. It is also a very solid offering. I think both Microsoft and Nokia did the right to go together. Great hardware from Nokia and great software from Microsoft. That combination is pure gold.
I suppose you are confusing the Lumia with the MeeGo-powered N9, which is the phone that's been selling unexpectedly well despite the fact that it wasn't released in a lot of markets, including but not limited to the US and UK markets.
one phone for all bands? so you can get the phone and use it on any network with have to buy a ATT or sprint one like the iphone. No having the phone locked to the carrier you choose.
It's not just the drugs, he really does have psychological issues. Notice how in both his apologies he mentioned making the mistake of underestimating the people he was replying to, demonstrating a total lack of remorse. He's not sorry for what happened, his only concerns are the career-ending consequences. Bullshit apologies are expected as standard procedure for damage control in situations like these, but normal people tend to adopt a stance that the public can empathize with.
One day you will wake up, realize that none of that makes sense because the only ones affected are you and your family (whom you are actually forcing your own views onto, which is ironic considering how you seem to stand for freedom), feel ashamed of yourself, and start buying from Apple, Microsoft, and Sony again simply because they make the products that you want to use.
I can understand the hate, I was like that in my early 20s, then I grew up. Apple isn't doing anything against Linux, nor even targeting the "Linux phones" as the article claims. They are targeting a subset of a very particular implementation of a Linux-based system on a few smartphones, for being a blatant copycat of their interface, not for running Linux, and in my opinion they are perfectly entitled to do so. If this boycott doesn't move people like me, it won't move anyone.
> The trick is to get other corporations to join the boycott. When advertisers started to pull their ads from the News Of The World it was forced to shut down pretty much instantly. If say Google decided to pull it's apps, YouTube iOS support and all other iOS tailored web sites we might see some results. Or how about Visa refusing to process Apple payments? We can only dream of course.
That would be a huge shot in the foot for Google and anyone else who profits from advertisement, considering that they have recently admitted that 2/3 of their mobile hits come from iOS devices. Furthermore it would be seen as monopolistic behavior in a time when Google is already trying to avoid being accused of anti-competitive practices in the advertisement market. It would actually be hilarious of Google pulled such a stunt.
Mach is open, the userland tools are all open, and Darwin was open for a while, though nobody demonstrated any interest in it.
OSX is like having a Linux desktop without the Linux issues, and Apple embraces open technologies and follows standards whenever possible, which in some cases is actually more than Linux does (SUS and POSIX compliance, for example).
Google did not destroy Apple's place in the market. The big loser to Android was Symbian, which was phased out by Nokia and held the top spot when Android came out, not iOS.
You must also keep in mind that all iPhones are high-end smartphones whereas Android powers quite a number of budget devices.
Finally, Google has admitted that 2/3 of its mobile hits come from iOS devices. I think that means a lot more about the platforms' real success than their market shares, and let us not even get started with app store revenues!
I stand half-corrected regarding Samsung's market cap ($123B). Half because they are nowhere near Apple's value ($364B), but it is true that Apple's live $40B wouldn't be enough to buy Samsung.
I think it's way too soon to see Apple as defeated when just yesterday there was an article about some third company suing everyone except Apple for patent infringement. This is far from over, and the way I see it, Apple will use their deep pockets to drown smaller vendors until there's no option left but to compensate Apple with their assets and declare bankruptcy. Don't forget that currently Apple has enough live money to buy 2 Nokias or 7 Samsungs.
Slashdot Mirror
1 - The app was free;
2 - Siri was supposed to be a distinctive feature of the iPhone 4S and iOS 5, so it would be pretty bad if it was half-assed;
3 - Given how much negative press they got from the antenna problems on the iPhone 4 (problems shared by other brands as well, including Nokia who joked about it, and that unknowingly to many people are caused by the FCC making requirements regarding antennas being positioned at the bottom, something that the iPhone 4S partly worked around by extending a smaller secondary antenna to the top this time, which the FCC miraculously approved), it is natural that they are now extra careful about quality assurance when releasing anything to the market.
The capability exists on any modern cell phone, they're all full of sensors. Two cameras facing different ways, one or two microphones, location data from GPS and AGPS, touch-screens, accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetometers, light-sensors, and proximity-sensors all permanently connected to a network, and most likely to the Internet as well. If a government agency wanted to have every phone in the world bugged, they could. There's no way for most people, even the teardown crowd, to tell what's in a SOC, and there's plenty of software for which you don't have the source due to regulatory reasons, even on the most open of devices, such as the Nokia N9, like the baseband...
If you are that suspicious and have reasons to hide anything from a government, refrain from appearing in public places (at least without a face mask, which serves two purposes: prevents others from seeing you and bits of your skin from falling off), remove all your body hair in order to reduce the chances of leaving DNA samples behind, wear gloves all the time to avoid leaving fingerprints behind, carry a bag with disposable plastic utensils for your own use, and find a way to safely dispose of them after use, possibly as far away from your base as you possibly can, so that nobody can track you down from traces of saliva in your utensils.
Even then, there are still personal traits that can't be avoided, such as the way you move, your voice, and your smell.
Apple TV?
The difference there is the wind. It fucks up voice recognition on the iPhone's built-in microphone, too.
Quote a reference, please. Also explain why Macs aren't selling that much better despite having an Apple logo in the back too, some of them even illuminated, with new versions coming out all the time.
How do you know sound quality is no different? Are you comparing the audio that Siri receives to the audio that the other voice recognition software receives? Are you comparing their performance in noisy environments? Are you trolling? Or are you simply clueless?
I know this will be pretty shocking for you to learn: but copyright laws give authors the right to revoke previously granted licenses at their own discretion, plus software is not subject to any kind of warranties, not even warranties of fitness for particular purposes anywhere I know. The remaining factual errors in your post have already been addressed, so I won't get into them myself.
I use Siri to set up reminders all the time, anywhere I go, it is a lot simpler than using the visual interface, plus I can interact with the phone in my pocket while listening to music.
Me: "Remind me about umbrella when I leave."
Siri: "OK, here's your a reminder for when you leave your current location, it reads: Umbrella. Shall I create it?"
Me: "Yes."
Siri: "OK, I will remind you."
It's also very useful for taking notes, switching playlists, and calling people. I wish it would also read reminders, notes, and text messages that are not new out loud, but hey, it's beta!
Or they could just not implement it in devices that do not have the hardware acceleration in order to avoid unnecessary power consumption due to audio processing on a general purpose CPU, which is what they did. It's called quality assurance, and is the reason why many other iOS 5 features are not available on the 3GS either.
Or it might be a QA issue, which is the case if you listen to the demos...
That reduces echo, but not other forms of external noise.
my tape drive does the same thing - oh, and I get my music and videos back, too.
Your tape drive sucks at syncing content across multiple devices.
Except that it backs up in one device and magically restores in all the others. It's amazing because it's the first time the consumer market sees this kind of tightly integrated and properly built syncing.
I have the unlocked, unsubsidized version. Nothing special about it.
iPhone 4S - Technically Yes, actually NO. The modem will do both, however is locked out of the factory to a carrier and can't be changed. Plus, Sprint and Verizon only allows phones they sell on their network.
My iPhone 4S isn't locked to any carrier, I bought it unlocked from Apple. How much stupidity is one required to correct in a single thread?
one phone for all bands? so you can get the phone and use it on any network with have to buy a ATT or sprint one like the iphone. No having the phone locked to the carrier you choose.
My iPhone 4S works with any carrier...
No. The iPhone 4S can work with any carrier in general, for the most part. A specific one cannot though, since there is a GSM model and a CDMA model. You either have the GSM or CDMA model in one phone, not both. You could however own both models...
Don't correct me when you clearly don't know what you're talking about and read the specification.
Nokia has been preparing their Windows Phone 7 line-up. Their Nokia Lumia smart phone has beat sales in many European countries and Australia in December and November, even topping iPhone and every Android phone. It is also a very solid offering. I think both Microsoft and Nokia did the right to go together. Great hardware from Nokia and great software from Microsoft. That combination is pure gold.
I suppose you are confusing the Lumia with the MeeGo-powered N9, which is the phone that's been selling unexpectedly well despite the fact that it wasn't released in a lot of markets, including but not limited to the US and UK markets.
one phone for all bands? so you can get the phone and use it on any network with have to buy a ATT or sprint one like the iphone. No having the phone locked to the carrier you choose.
My iPhone 4S works with any carrier...
It's not just the drugs, he really does have psychological issues. Notice how in both his apologies he mentioned making the mistake of underestimating the people he was replying to, demonstrating a total lack of remorse. He's not sorry for what happened, his only concerns are the career-ending consequences. Bullshit apologies are expected as standard procedure for damage control in situations like these, but normal people tend to adopt a stance that the public can empathize with.
One day you will wake up, realize that none of that makes sense because the only ones affected are you and your family (whom you are actually forcing your own views onto, which is ironic considering how you seem to stand for freedom), feel ashamed of yourself, and start buying from Apple, Microsoft, and Sony again simply because they make the products that you want to use.
I can understand the hate, I was like that in my early 20s, then I grew up. Apple isn't doing anything against Linux, nor even targeting the "Linux phones" as the article claims. They are targeting a subset of a very particular implementation of a Linux-based system on a few smartphones, for being a blatant copycat of their interface, not for running Linux, and in my opinion they are perfectly entitled to do so. If this boycott doesn't move people like me, it won't move anyone.
> The trick is to get other corporations to join the boycott. When advertisers started to pull their ads from the News Of The World it was forced to shut down pretty much instantly. If say Google decided to pull it's apps, YouTube iOS support and all other iOS tailored web sites we might see some results. Or how about Visa refusing to process Apple payments? We can only dream of course.
That would be a huge shot in the foot for Google and anyone else who profits from advertisement, considering that they have recently admitted that 2/3 of their mobile hits come from iOS devices. Furthermore it would be seen as monopolistic behavior in a time when Google is already trying to avoid being accused of anti-competitive practices in the advertisement market. It would actually be hilarious of Google pulled such a stunt.
Mach is open, the userland tools are all open, and Darwin was open for a while, though nobody demonstrated any interest in it.
OSX is like having a Linux desktop without the Linux issues, and Apple embraces open technologies and follows standards whenever possible, which in some cases is actually more than Linux does (SUS and POSIX compliance, for example).
Google did not destroy Apple's place in the market. The big loser to Android was Symbian, which was phased out by Nokia and held the top spot when Android came out, not iOS.
You must also keep in mind that all iPhones are high-end smartphones whereas Android powers quite a number of budget devices.
Finally, Google has admitted that 2/3 of its mobile hits come from iOS devices. I think that means a lot more about the platforms' real success than their market shares, and let us not even get started with app store revenues!
I stand half-corrected regarding Samsung's market cap ($123B). Half because they are nowhere near Apple's value ($364B), but it is true that Apple's live $40B wouldn't be enough to buy Samsung.
I think it's way too soon to see Apple as defeated when just yesterday there was an article about some third company suing everyone except Apple for patent infringement. This is far from over, and the way I see it, Apple will use their deep pockets to drown smaller vendors until there's no option left but to compensate Apple with their assets and declare bankruptcy. Don't forget that currently Apple has enough live money to buy 2 Nokias or 7 Samsungs.