No kidding, you can help the STI* Project by running STI @home. Please donate some of your spare brain processing power (after all you only use 10%) to help us find intelligent life.
We don't learn much American history this side of the pond (we have about a thousand years of history of our own to learn about). The part that every British schoolchild learns though is that "in fourteen hundred and ninety two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue" so the GP was probably counting from that date.
Having just two hundred years of history to learn must make life so much easier for your school kids;p Ours usually start from at least 1066 (the last time we were successfully invaded).
...we still have armed revolt as an option. The UK doesn't even have that. I think that there are people would disagree. Only recently dind the rebellion come to an end, and even so, there are some who are still at war.
No, I'm afraid not; I still don't understand the hype or the reaction to it; IMO there are a whole bunch of other phones out there with features that are equal to or superior than the iPhone (the Nokia N95 being my favorite). I can get any of these for cheaper than I can get the iPhone, and I'm not locked into any particular network, so why should I pay a premium for the iPhone?
Maybe it's because I don't own any other apple products (not even an ipod; I have a different brand of mp3 player) that I don't understand or appreciate how "the experience" could be worth so much of a premium. But I don't think I'm alone, iPhone sales here in the UK have been lackluster.
My opinion is that this is because once people see the iPhone spec. and it's price they realise that it brings nothing new or innovative to the market. Afterall, unlike in the US we've never had to put up with crippled phones or get locked in to one phone company, why should we start now? Add to that lack of MMS (a must for many people) and the fact that we've got a decent 3G network that the iPhone fails to use and, if anything, to me the iPhone still looks like a step backwards, not forwards.
Thanks for all that, you've been the most informative source of info on the iPhone that I've come across.
It seems as though it's not the device for me, I happen to like Nokia's interfaces, so if I can get a high-end Nokia that can give me a good camera and decent mp3 player for cheaper than an iPhone, then I can put up with "bear skins and stone knives.".
Secondly visual voicemail in the way you describe it is redundant for my purposes as I delete my regular voice mail as soon as I've listened to it; I only keep stuff sent via MMS so there's no real need to be able save & listen to it in an order other than that which I received it. And as the iPhone is the only mobile phone in recent years that isn't capable of MMS, so I would end up with a pretty inbox, but one that was always empty.
With the iPhone, the caller doesn't have to know or do anything about MMS or have an MMS-capable device. Visual voicemail works all the time, with any call, from any phone in the world. Aside from the iPhone, what other phone bought in the last few years doesn't have MMS capability??
Standard iPhone plans currently don't include "pay as you go" as far as I know, although I've heard there's a way to switch to them if you do it the right way- don't know for sure. I know that, I'm thinking about switching to a high-end phone along with a contract.
For people like me who prefer a monthly plan, price is a non-issue, because (in the US at least), iPhone voice rates are as cheap as anything else, and the unlimited data plan is actually cheaper than most (at $20/month). Here in the UK, there is a price difference; I can get other phones for free on an almost identical monthly plan.
If you don't care about your phone GUI, I'm puzzled why you're even bothering, because that's the point of the iPhone. If the GUI is the only difference, why is it £269 more expensive than other phones? http://shop.o2.co.uk/promo/iphonetariffs http://shop.o2.co.uk/phone/Nokia/N95
And if you need to keep your monthly phone expenditures under £10/month, I don;t think the iPhone is right for you. I don't need to, I currently choose to; I'm looking int the high end phone market to see if it meets my needs (maybe I can ditch my PDA & mp3player etc.)
If you don't even know what visual voicemail does, then why did you say you could "simulate" it with MMS? VV is explained here:
Vodaphone and T-Mobile are two operators that remove features from phones and hack about with the firmware purely because the phones have a feature that would save the end user some money. I was with T-Mobile here in the UK for a while; I bought a phone from them (a free phone, but contract for 18 months deal) they seemed ok I certainly couldn't complain about them crippling the phone. Their customer service sucks though; in the end that was the the reason I left them.* Why they cripple their phones in the USA I don't know. Can't you guys just buy a sim free phone from somewhere else (perhaps import it from Canada or buy it off ebay from here in the UK) and put an American sim in it?
*At the end of the 18 months they would only let me port my number to another contract, not to a pay as you go tariff. I simply went across the road to the O2 store who happily gave me a sim for £5 and one week later (the time it takes too port the number) I had the same phone & number but with a different company, didn't even have to get it unlocked.
That's sort of like having a conversation with a salesperson in the late 1980's who "admits" that the only thing the Macintosh has over DOS is the GUI. Care to expand a bit. What I want to know is how it compares to other phones. My Phone cost £30, pay as you go, the iPhone would cost £800 over the course of an 18 month contract. I top up £10 every month to month and a half, so over that 18 month period my current phone would cost me ~£200. Having a better GUI doesn't cost £600, some of it it must go somewhere on\in the phone the sales person was unable to tell me where, but instead raved about the experience.
And the idea of "simulating" visual voicemail with MMS? What this has to do with anything in the real cell phone world is certainly beyond me. With MMS I can record and send audio clips (or indeed video or pictorial) and they will sit in the inbox of the person to listen to at their leisure; having not used Visual voicemail, I don't know what it's capable of. The Apple salesman was either unwilling or unable to tell me how it works, all I got from him was that it would be a "breakthrough experience". If you can tell me how it functions and why it's better than sending audio over either MMS or normal voicemail.
Obviously they both have different uses one is to send a clip of a song or video to a friend to keep, the other is just a short message like an answerphone service. Is visual voicemail like the former or the latter? If it's the latter who keeps their answerphone messages "to browse at their leasure" anyway?
I'd be gratful to hear your reply as I'm looking into buying a high end phone, and want some actual specs. so I can compare it with others?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but generally I don't think that selling cell phones requires a college/university degree. I agree, but they should at least know their own products inside out. Otherwise how do you sell it? When someone says "can it do X" the answer shouldn't be "it's not about X, it's about the experience", the answer should be either "not only can it do X, but it can do a, b, and c as well" or it should be, Sorry it can't do X, but it can do a, b, c and d which, along with y and z make it better than something that can do X".
Just to play devils advocate - I'm a surgeon/geek/former scientist, and so how I choose to buy things is probably very, very different than my musician and actor friends. Neither way of buying/comparing things is the "right" way. I do the same as you, but with all the hype, actual facts about the iPhone are hard to come across; 99% of the information about the iPhone seems to be coming from either apple Fanboys or people who basically say "Apple sux0rs so therefore the iPhone sux0rs" for a variety of reasons impartial views are hard to find on the subject. For the record from the research that I've done the Nokia N95 seems to be a better deal (both a better phone and a better price) than the iPhone, but there are still so many people raving about the iPhone I can't help but feel I'm missing somthing. As the only place I only ever tried them is at the store, I could be totally wrong, and the iPhone might really be the best thing since sliced bread. But I can't find anyone willing to actually tell me what's actually so good about it; even here on slashdot the people who claim it's so great often rave about the "experience" instead of compareing it's feature set to another high-end phone.
You obviously don't know what visual voicemail is. It's not a video of someone talking to you, it's a method of displaying the voicemails in your box graphically without having to sit through each one to see who it's from and how long it is.
I don't even own an iPhone and I know that. I do know that; you can send audio clips via MMS as well as video (yes, I can record just audio clips on my phone), and they sit in your message inbox similar to an SMS so you can open whichever one you want whenever you want. The Apple salesman agreed that this wasn't hugely different to visual voicemail, though he didn't know you could send audio via MMS*. If he was wrong, than someone correct him (and by implication, me) please.
*I possibly got a particularly dumb salesman when I asked straight out "what does the iPhone offer over and above other phones" instead of giving me it's specs. he started going on and on about vagaries like "breakthrough experience" without actually defining what that meant. If somone can tell me what a "breakthrough experience" is I'd be very happy.
Yes, this platform really is that special, no matter how much you, personally, might hate Apple, the iPhone, or both.) Really? From here in the UK, I still just don't "get" the iPhone. Anecdotally I don't know anyone who has one or is planning on getting one (locked or unlocked) Even the salesman in the Apple store couldn't explain how the damn thing was better than my cheap ass* £30 Nokia, apart from using vague terms like the "iphone experience" whatever that means. In the end I got him to admit that the only thing it had over my phone was the GUI, and that my phone could replicate anything else it did with a bit of help eg:
Check my email: http://www.google.com/mobile/ (or just go direct to the gmail site with the phone browser)
Browse the web: http://www.operamini.com/ (if you don't like the built in browser)
Even visual voicemail can be simulated using MMS (a feature the iPhone lacks).
So if my phone can do that on a pay as you go basis, unlocked and I'm able to switch** if and when I see a better deal Why get an iPhone??? And as I said mine is a cheap phone, so the more expensive Nokias, Motorollas etc. should have even more functionality, right?.
I just don't understand the hype and wish I did, so can someone tell me what's so good about the iPhone?
*cheap as in the second cheapest in the O2 shop despite that it still manages to have a stills and video camera.
**As it happens O2 have been a very good service provider and would happily recommend them to anyone. Ironically they are the company partnered with Apple here in the UK, so brand loyalty wouldn't be a problem should I wish to get an iPhone in future.
Being Australian, with a fairly similar political spectrum to the UK, I would have expected a Pom to perceive the Democrats and Repbulicans as Right and Far Right;). In general, people here in the UK probably do, but I'm fairly liberal (economically) myself so that's probably just my bias showing.
For example in this country some of my beliefs are fringe and\or controversial, such as belief in more liberal gun control laws (not as far as the US though) & I'm not opposed to more private sector involvement in things like health and education as long as they remain free at point of use. However I'm still labelled a socialist by many Americans on the 'net because of that final point.
I usually tell them to come back to me when they've had actual socialists either in power or as the main opposition within living memory.
one of the socialists ?? Living in the UK, I didn't even know the USA had an active socialist party until I googled it in order to reply to you; from my perspective the US politics has two centre right parties, one is just further right than the other. Modern English[sic]* politics is similar, we have three right of centre parties instead of two.
*The rest of the UK have their respective nationalist parties which can generally be described as left wing, but even then IIRC none are traditionally socialist (they all believe in the free market to some extent) but could probably be better described as collectivist.
I don't know offhand if libraries have to purchase books or if publishers give them to libraries for free Having worked in both public and academic libaries (in the UK) I can confirm we have to pay for them just like anyone else; we even have to pay a fee to the British Library for an interlibrary loan if a customer wants a book that we don't have and consequently have to request a copy from them (unless we decide to buy it ourselves of course).
Judges are generally not politicians. Indeed, but it's the politicians who wrote the law that this Judge ruled on, so they are not entirely blameless either.
In the same way, getting people in to the library by having X-Box, the latest video games, open WiFi, porn DVDs, whatever, might provide opportunities to encourage "more productive" or "more educational" activities.) I don't know which country you're in, but my local library is already trying out videogames (search the,catalogue for "playstation", but the Wifi hotspot is provided via the Cloud, so is a commercial operation, but it probably provides better value for (taxpayer) money than free WiFi, and Video\DVD & CD loans aren't free either, WiFi is just loaning Bandwidth.
I'd say that this library isn't unusual among public libraries here in the UK, Librarians are smart, highly qualified people (most people don't realise need a degree to become a librarian* )And are acutely aware of the need to adapt to a fast changing information climate.
*disclaimer: I currently work in a library in an IT role, but am hoping to start a librarianship degree when I have time. That side of things is just so much more fun.
It's the same here in the UK, indeed I can request an ILL from local public libraries as well as academic libraries, both can request items from each other as well as the British library who have a copy of anything ever published in the UK.
Additionally, there is a scheme that allows me to search the national libraries of most Europian countries called The Europian Library I don't know if there's procedure for getting an ILL from another country yet.
On the other hand, maybe you could look forward to quality spoken word radio? BBC Radio 4 has quality comedy, documentaries, news, politics and much more besides. And as it's from the BBC there's no adverts! It's worth the licence fee all on it's own (and if you don't watch TV, you don't even need to pay that).
"harrass"[sic] That is what we call in the industry a 'mistake'. This you would know from the fact that you typed 'nowhere' as two words. People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. You're right I apologise.
Considering that the article is in fact a hoax, So I noticed.
I hope you're prepared to accept the consequences of doing so. What exactly would they be? All I did was link to publicly available information. I didn't do anything further with it myself, what others did with it is up to them. If anyone really did abuse it (and I doubt that they did; any looneys would have looked up the info themselves) they will have to live with the consequences, not me.
Aside: I note that my original post has earned me what I think is my first ever troll mod though, I can't say that it wasn't deserved, flamebait was uncalled for though.
Anybody with half a brain will tell you that discipline is critical for kids when they're growing up, and here you are telling people to harrass a teacher who dared to punish a disobedient student.
Absolutely pathetic. No where in my post did I tell anyone to "harrass"[sic] his teacher, I just told everyone his teacher's email address*, for all I know, you might want to use that email address to congratulate him.
Indeed I even went to the length of typing
*stands well back* in order to distance myself from what people wish to do with the information I provided.
*something anyone with access to TFA, google & a working brain should be able to find.
Slashdot Mirror
No kidding, you can help the STI* Project by running STI @home. Please donate some of your spare brain processing power (after all you only use 10%) to help us find intelligent life.
*Search for Terrestrial Intelligence
We don't learn much American history this side of the pond (we have about a thousand years of history of our own to learn about). The part that every British schoolchild learns though is that "in fourteen hundred and ninety two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue" so the GP was probably counting from that date.
;p Ours usually start from at least 1066 (the last time we were successfully invaded).
Having just two hundred years of history to learn must make life so much easier for your school kids
...we still have armed revolt as an option. The UK doesn't even have that.I think that there are people would disagree. Only recently dind the rebellion come to an end, and even so, there are some who are still at war.
No, I'm afraid not; I still don't understand the hype or the reaction to it; IMO there are a whole bunch of other phones out there with features that are equal to or superior than the iPhone (the Nokia N95 being my favorite). I can get any of these for cheaper than I can get the iPhone, and I'm not locked into any particular network, so why should I pay a premium for the iPhone?
Maybe it's because I don't own any other apple products (not even an ipod; I have a different brand of mp3 player) that I don't understand or appreciate how "the experience" could be worth so much of a premium. But I don't think I'm alone, iPhone sales here in the UK have been lackluster.
My opinion is that this is because once people see the iPhone spec. and it's price they realise that it brings nothing new or innovative to the market. Afterall, unlike in the US we've never had to put up with crippled phones or get locked in to one phone company, why should we start now? Add to that lack of MMS (a must for many people) and the fact that we've got a decent 3G network that the iPhone fails to use and, if anything, to me the iPhone still looks like a step backwards, not forwards.
That wasn't a troll, that was a work of art; and why do I find that funnier than I should?? ;p
No, that's past being a troll; it's now a meme. ;p
Thanks for all that, you've been the most informative source of info on the iPhone that I've come across.
It seems as though it's not the device for me, I happen to like Nokia's interfaces, so if I can get a high-end Nokia that can give me a good camera and decent mp3 player for cheaper than an iPhone, then I can put up with "bear skins and stone knives.".
Secondly visual voicemail in the way you describe it is redundant for my purposes as I delete my regular voice mail as soon as I've listened to it; I only keep stuff sent via MMS so there's no real need to be able save & listen to it in an order other than that which I received it. And as the iPhone is the only mobile phone in recent years that isn't capable of MMS, so I would end up with a pretty inbox, but one that was always empty.
http://shop.o2.co.uk/promo/iphonetariffs
http://shop.o2.co.uk/phone/Nokia/N95 And if you need to keep your monthly phone expenditures under £10/month, I don;t think the iPhone is right for you.
I don't need to, I currently choose to; I'm looking int the high end phone market to see if it meets my needs (maybe I can ditch my PDA & mp3player etc.)
If you don't even know what visual voicemail does, then why did you say you could "simulate" it with MMS? VV is explained here:
http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/index.html#voicemail
From that description (it idn't tell me anything I didn't already know) it seems I was correct MMS can achieve exactly the same effect as Visual voicemail.
I was with T-Mobile here in the UK for a while; I bought a phone from them (a free phone, but contract for 18 months deal) they seemed ok I certainly couldn't complain about them crippling the phone. Their customer service sucks though; in the end that was the the reason I left them.* Why they cripple their phones in the USA I don't know. Can't you guys just buy a sim free phone from somewhere else (perhaps import it from Canada or buy it off ebay from here in the UK) and put an American sim in it?
*At the end of the 18 months they would only let me port my number to another contract, not to a pay as you go tariff. I simply went across the road to the O2 store who happily gave me a sim for £5 and one week later (the time it takes too port the number) I had the same phone & number but with a different company, didn't even have to get it unlocked.
Obviously they both have different uses one is to send a clip of a song or video to a friend to keep, the other is just a short message like an answerphone service. Is visual voicemail like the former or the latter? If it's the latter who keeps their answerphone messages "to browse at their leasure" anyway?
I'd be gratful to hear your reply as I'm looking into buying a high end phone, and want some actual specs. so I can compare it with others?
As the only place I only ever tried them is at the store, I could be totally wrong, and the iPhone might really be the best thing since sliced bread. But I can't find anyone willing to actually tell me what's actually so good about it; even here on slashdot the people who claim it's so great often rave about the "experience" instead of compareing it's feature set to another high-end phone.
I don't even own an iPhone and I know that. I do know that; you can send audio clips via MMS as well as video (yes, I can record just audio clips on my phone), and they sit in your message inbox similar to an SMS so you can open whichever one you want whenever you want. The Apple salesman agreed that this wasn't hugely different to visual voicemail, though he didn't know you could send audio via MMS*. If he was wrong, than someone correct him (and by implication, me) please.
*I possibly got a particularly dumb salesman when I asked straight out "what does the iPhone offer over and above other phones" instead of giving me it's specs. he started going on and on about vagaries like "breakthrough experience" without actually defining what that meant. If somone can tell me what a "breakthrough experience" is I'd be very happy.
Check my email: http://www.google.com/mobile/ (or just go direct to the gmail site with the phone browser)
Browse the web: http://www.operamini.com/ (if you don't like the built in browser)
Even visual voicemail can be simulated using MMS (a feature the iPhone lacks).
So if my phone can do that on a pay as you go basis, unlocked and I'm able to switch** if and when I see a better deal Why get an iPhone??? And as I said mine is a cheap phone, so the more expensive Nokias, Motorollas etc. should have even more functionality, right?.
I just don't understand the hype and wish I did, so can someone tell me what's so good about the iPhone?
*cheap as in the second cheapest in the O2 shop despite that it still manages to have a stills and video camera.
**As it happens O2 have been a very good service provider and would happily recommend them to anyone. Ironically they are the company partnered with Apple here in the UK, so brand loyalty wouldn't be a problem should I wish to get an iPhone in future.
For example in this country some of my beliefs are fringe and\or controversial, such as belief in more liberal gun control laws (not as far as the US though) & I'm not opposed to more private sector involvement in things like health and education as long as they remain free at point of use. However I'm still labelled a socialist by many Americans on the 'net because of that final point.
I usually tell them to come back to me when they've had actual socialists either in power or as the main opposition within living memory.
*The rest of the UK have their respective nationalist parties which can generally be described as left wing, but even then IIRC none are traditionally socialist (they all believe in the free market to some extent) but could probably be better described as collectivist.
I don't know which country you're in, but my local library is already trying out videogames (search the
I'd say that this library isn't unusual among public libraries here in the UK, Librarians are smart, highly qualified people (most people don't realise need a degree to become a librarian* )And are acutely aware of the need to adapt to a fast changing information climate.
*disclaimer: I currently work in a library in an IT role, but am hoping to start a librarianship degree when I have time. That side of things is just so much more fun.
It's the same here in the UK, indeed I can request an ILL from local public libraries as well as academic libraries, both can request items from each other as well as the British library who have a copy of anything ever published in the UK.
Additionally, there is a scheme that allows me to search the national libraries of most Europian countries called The Europian Library I don't know if there's procedure for getting an ILL from another country yet.
In case it wasn't obvious, I work in a library.
On the other hand, maybe you could look forward to quality spoken word radio? BBC Radio 4 has quality comedy, documentaries, news, politics and much more besides. And as it's from the BBC there's no adverts! It's worth the licence fee all on it's own (and if you don't watch TV, you don't even need to pay that).
Aside: I note that my original post has earned me what I think is my first ever troll mod though, I can't say that it wasn't deserved, flamebait was uncalled for though.
Absolutely pathetic. No where in my post did I tell anyone to "harrass"[sic] his teacher, I just told everyone his teacher's email address*, for all I know, you might want to use that email address to congratulate him.
Indeed I even went to the length of typing *stands well back* in order to distance myself from what people wish to do with the information I provided.
*something anyone with access to TFA, google & a working brain should be able to find.