However, soon enough the next version of Flash, 10.1, will support private browsing and will integrate with browsers to turn it on when the browser itself is in private browsing mode.
That's such an elegant and simple design, that isn't problematic at all! I mean, who cares about essentially having a browser within your browser, as long as your browser can communicate stuff to the other browser, at the whim of each browser developer?
Apple doesn't make much money from software at all
As they say, [citation needed]. Why would they develop such applications as Final Cut Pro, Logic and Filemaker if they weren't profitable?
but as a whole, the industry still isn't making anywhere near as much as companies that focus primarily on business software, because again, that's where the real money is.
Again, we are talking about mobile phone applications here. I very much doubt that selling to business is where the money is at for phone applications - just as that is not where the money is for game developers. You need to realize that not everything is business-related, and the consumer market is perfectly valid and sought-after.
The piracy aspect is huge. If the business market could get away with wholesale piracy of applications, they would don an eyepatch in a heartbeat. The difference is that businesses cannot afford to get caught pirating software, so standards are very different in that world (although if you look at very small businesses, things get dodgy pretty quickly).
So how is banning jailbreakers from the app store going to help with that?
There is no evidence that these users have in fact been banned. Accounts get locked automatically all the time, it's a temporary security measure. Until there's something more substantive showing that people have been banned for being jailbreakers, I remain skeptical.
Basically, there wouldn't be jailbreaking if apple was actually giving their customers what they want.
You're wrong about this. Hackers will always hack things, just for the sake of hacking things. C'mon, this is slashdot, you should know that. Hacking doesn't need to fulfill any need other than curiosity.
I get this message sometimes. It seems to happen when I log in with just my ADC username, or with my whole email address (I forget way around) - all I need to do is swap, and I can log in fine. I think it's a bug.
The funny thing is the terrible reporting - the error message actually says that your account has been "disabled" - but in this story it's been changed to "banned."
Your lack of ability to understand and correctly interpret common English is not my problem, it is yours.
So, where does the dictionary define "proper" as "physical"? I think it is your problem, as much as you protest that it isn't.
I don't think I've ever met anyone who finds it so hard to understand technology concepts like this. I'll try one last time, to answer your question, the on screen keyboard doesn't detect you touching it,
You appear to be the one struggling to understand. The touchscreen is a component of the "virtual" keyboard. It is hardware. therefore, it is physical.
Your reasoning doesn't make sense. Your regular, "physical" keyboard requires software to display characters on the screen, so the presence of software to interpret input doesn't make something less physical.
I've yet to find a Netbook with a keyboard so small that you can't touch-type on it, simply because there are no netbooks with keyboards that small.
How the fuck would you know which netbook keyboards I can't touch type on, if you've never even met me, let alone gone netbook shopping together? Now, you might not have any problem typing on those tiny keyboards, but that that doesn't mean your experience is universal.
No a virtual keyboard would not be just as effective, because it still lacks tactile response, and still suffers the afformentioned problem of inherent software latency.
Again, you assume that tactile feedback is always a key factor for everybody in every usage situation. That's not necessarily true.
Also, how is "software latency" relevant? Your "physical" keyboard also suffers from software latency, as its input needs to be interpreted by software. In reality, with a modern processor and well-written software, software latency just isn't an issue with virtual keyboards.
Then comes the internet and blows this totally out proportion and saying that this guy thinks that gamers are generally more dangerous than bikers...
Well, what point was he trying to convey by saying this on a gaming show? Are you trying to argue that it was just a totally unrelated personal anecdote, and he didn't actually mean anything by it? That the comment was not supposed to relate to gamers in general in any way?
On the right hand we have austere government imposed morality, on the left hand we have censorship nanny state.
Except that nobody on the left is actually proposing censorship. You are confusing "populist politicians" with "leftists" - the same is true for "conservatives." There really isn't much resembling either leftism or conservatism is modern western politics, it's all just a bureaucratic mish-mash of pandering.
According to you, there must be more Iphone software sold than Windows, because they have more downloads than on the "Windows app store"! And then according to you, this means there are more Iphone users than Windows users!
How would that be "according to me," since I never suggested anything remotely like that. I never excluded apps not downloaded from the app store as not being part of the mobile application market.
The OP's statement is a fact, supported by market share figures (I'll dig some out, if you like).
Yeah, except iTunes and the App store don't actually make any money [theregister.co.uk]
Wow, a misleading Register article (is there any other kind?)
whilst the PC software business was worth $303.8bn [infoedge.com] by the start of last year, of which only at absolute most $60bn was attributable to Microsoft during that period [econsultant.com].
The post I was replying to was written from the perspective of a developer. Many developers are making significant profits from selling their applications on the app store. You're looking at the wrong end. Apple is like the retailer, its profits do not represent the whole market, as Apple gets 30% of each transaction, not all of it.
What's even more interesting, is that the app store makes it easy for individuals and small independent developers to start making money from their work - pretty much the opposite of the PC market, which requires significant marketing and investment just to be heard above the noise.
whilst Apple is still only just about breaking even with it's online stores.
But that's not true Apple is not "just about breaking even," it's making a "small profit."
If Apple were to make money from software, they would need to venture out into the world of business, but they have shown numerous times they are not interested in that.
This statement doesn't make any sense - Apple has been making lots of money from software, for years, well before the iPhone was introduced. Why does one need to sell to businesses to profit from software? You might want to mention that to game developers, because some of them seem to be doing pretty well selling to consumers.
Also, what businesses are buying mobile phone software in significant quantities?
If you're going to talk about software markets, please at least do a little bit of research to understand them first, rather than just simply making it all up as you go along.
Oh we're talking about keypads, rather than keyboards? I thought you had your semantics right on this, but I guess not.
I used the word "keypad" in the very post you replied to, so how wasn't that clear?
Regardless, you'll still type faster with numeric to text pads if you've been using them long enough than you ever will be able to with a touchscreen virtual keyboard.
What evidence do you have of this? I used a Nokia with a numeric pad for text entry for years, and I hated it, could never type very quickly. But with a virtual QWERTY, I was typing much faster almost instantly.
Also, why should I learn a new scheme? That's like saying I'll type faster on a Dvorak keyboard layout if I spend enough time using it. Completely irrelevant, as I'm not about to spend time learning a Dvorak layout.
When I said I was referring to physical keyboards with the use of the term proper, that does not mean I was referring to all possible keyboards real and imaginary, including the most ludicrous ones that only a child's mind could come up with like the example you just gave.
This is your problem. You chose your words poorly. When you said "proper keyboards," you actually meant "keyboards I like," and when you redefined "proper" as "physical" you only dug yourself further into the hole - because it seems that by "physical" you only mean a certain subset of "physical" keyboards.
If by "proper" you meant "physical," then why didn't you say that? And if by "physical" you mean "keyboards I like," then why didn't you just say that in the first place?
Well no, it hasn't. You see, the term virtual is used to describe a software representation of a separate physical whole, this includes virtual keyboards, virtual memory, virtual discs, virtual CD drives and so on.
Yes, I agree that is the traditional usage - but it is baggage that we must get rid of if we want to evolve and become more sophisticated about technology. "Virtual" is a crutch, a term used by those struggling to come to terms with software and digital objects.
Just because you interface with that image of a keyboard, that piece of software, with a physical input device- your touch screen, does not make the system a physical keyboard.
But it is a physical keyboard. How else would it detect you touching it?
I'm not even sure what your goal is here, even if by some twist of the imagination globally you managed to get on-screen keyboards redefined as being physical keyboards, what would your point be exactly?
My point was that there are many different types of keyboard, and different people prefer different ones, and the physicality (or lack thereof) is not the most defining characteristic. There are some really shitty "physical" keyboards, and some really good "virtual" keyboards. My issue was with your sloppy thinking and poor assumptions.
Back to your example - what good is a netbook keyboard that's so small you can't touch-type on it? Wouldn't a virtual keyboard be just as effective in that case? What about the space the keyboard takes up? On a device that is not used mainly for typing, wouldn't adding a bulky keyboard actually be a drawback? Typing speed is not the only consideration.
Perhaps some may disagree, but all most the most ignorant zealots will agree that typing on such a physical keyboard is far easier than any touch screen implementation be it the iPhone or Android.
Seriously? Repeatedly pressing keys in some bizarre numeric-to-alpha scheme is easier than using a QWERTY touchscreen?
I think your comment reveals your own zealotry.
Because it's virtual. The touchscreen is not the keyboard, it's merely a method to interface with the virtual keyboard.
Just because Wikipedia says it, doesn't make it true. A "virtual" keyboard is just as physical as any other keyboard. Otherwise, how would it exist?
Bollocks. No one can ever reach the same typing speed on a virtual keyboard as can be achieved on a physical keyboard because of lack of true tactile response, and the inherent relative slowness of software. On screen keyboards can be pretty good, but never as good.
So, where's your evidence for this? Is typing on a "virtual keyboard" always faster than typing on, for example, a chiclet keyboard? There are some pretty horrible "physical" keyboards out there, how can you be so certain that physical keyboards are always faster?
Semantics. I clarified that by proper I meant physical.
So, by your definition, a keyboard that required one to mechanically lift a 200 pound weight, and place it on a grid with letters spaced 10 feet apart would be "proper" keyboard?
By that argument, nothing is virtual, because everything virtual, including software exists as a set of real, physical, electrons, or markings on a disk platter or whatever.
Correct. The term has always been a misnomer.
Still, to just clarify that again for you, and hence answer your question more precisely, an on screen keyboard is not a physical keyboard because of the fact it is not actually a keyboard, but merely a software representation of what we know as a keyboard
But it involves hardware elements. It doesn't exist purely in software. Otherwise, how could it detect fingers touching it?
To give you an analogy to ponder over, would you call an on screen image of an orange, a physical orange even if you could interface with that image using the touch screen to rotate it and so forth?
So, any average mobile phone with a numeric keypad has a "proper" keyboard just because it has "physical" switches? I don't think you'll find many people agreeing with that.
Also, how is a touchscreen keyboard not physical? It uses touch sensors and emits light. Are those somehow against the laws of physics now?
I wont pretend I could jump straight onto a netbook keyboard and type away as flawlessly as on a normal desktop keyboard, I did make a couple more mistakes on average, but it's something you rapidly get over-
And plenty of people argue the same thing about touchscreen keyboards. Which just goes to show that the definition of a "proper" keyboard is highly subjective and variable.
Perhaps you should not have chosen that term to describe the keyboard? For many people, anything short of a full-sized keyboard that one can touch-type on is not a proper keyboard. For others, a T9 numeric keypad is their standard keyboard.
it still wasn't a match for a physical keyboard.
Again, how is a touchscreen keyboard not a physical keyboard? It exists in physical reality, so how is it not physical? It uses physical motions to detect input, so it must be physical.
In the 80s, you bought a motherboard with lots of expansion slots... Then in the 90s, every board had built-in audio, video, and IO.
What the fuck are you talking about? Computers in the 1980s typically had very poor hardware expandability, and in the 1990s, expandability options increased dramatically.
Built-in audio, video and IO basically defines 80s era computers, while modularity is the hallmark of 90s computing.
So I can google something while composing an E-mail.
How the fuck do you type something into Google, while at the same time type something into your email client? Do you have two keyboards hooked up to your computer or something?
The iPhone is a pretty flashy toy that makes phone calls and lots of people love it for that. It really does look pretty.
Who would think that the iPhone was "pretty"? It has a simple, minimalist design, but nothing that could be described as pretty (which implies embellishment and fanciness, the exact opposite of simple minimalist design).
IT support is constantly pissed off about everything, anyway - so what would be the difference? It's IT's job to support the users, not to act all pissy because they don't like what the user wants.
Or, like the thousands of examples that came before.....people will simply go to another website that does not have such requirements.
Riiiiiiight. They're going to go to a different site, instead of simply clicking on the link provided to download Google Chrome and install it.
I don't think you quite understand how many users YouTube has. If YouTube stops working, people won't switch to a different site, they'll switch browsers to make it work.
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder if there might be a slashdot thread for this slashdot thread?
However, soon enough the next version of Flash, 10.1, will support private browsing and will integrate with browsers to turn it on when the browser itself is in private browsing mode.
That's such an elegant and simple design, that isn't problematic at all! I mean, who cares about essentially having a browser within your browser, as long as your browser can communicate stuff to the other browser, at the whim of each browser developer?
Apple doesn't make much money from software at all
As they say, [citation needed]. Why would they develop such applications as Final Cut Pro, Logic and Filemaker if they weren't profitable?
but as a whole, the industry still isn't making anywhere near as much as companies that focus primarily on business software, because again, that's where the real money is.
Again, we are talking about mobile phone applications here. I very much doubt that selling to business is where the money is at for phone applications - just as that is not where the money is for game developers. You need to realize that not everything is business-related, and the consumer market is perfectly valid and sought-after.
The piracy aspect is huge. If the business market could get away with wholesale piracy of applications, they would don an eyepatch in a heartbeat. The difference is that businesses cannot afford to get caught pirating software, so standards are very different in that world (although if you look at very small businesses, things get dodgy pretty quickly).
So how is banning jailbreakers from the app store going to help with that?
There is no evidence that these users have in fact been banned. Accounts get locked automatically all the time, it's a temporary security measure. Until there's something more substantive showing that people have been banned for being jailbreakers, I remain skeptical.
Basically, there wouldn't be jailbreaking if apple was actually giving their customers what they want.
You're wrong about this. Hackers will always hack things, just for the sake of hacking things. C'mon, this is slashdot, you should know that. Hacking doesn't need to fulfill any need other than curiosity.
I get this message sometimes. It seems to happen when I log in with just my ADC username, or with my whole email address (I forget way around) - all I need to do is swap, and I can log in fine. I think it's a bug.
The funny thing is the terrible reporting - the error message actually says that your account has been "disabled" - but in this story it's been changed to "banned."
Your lack of ability to understand and correctly interpret common English is not my problem, it is yours.
So, where does the dictionary define "proper" as "physical"? I think it is your problem, as much as you protest that it isn't.
I don't think I've ever met anyone who finds it so hard to understand technology concepts like this. I'll try one last time, to answer your question, the on screen keyboard doesn't detect you touching it,
You appear to be the one struggling to understand. The touchscreen is a component of the "virtual" keyboard. It is hardware. therefore, it is physical.
Your reasoning doesn't make sense. Your regular, "physical" keyboard requires software to display characters on the screen, so the presence of software to interpret input doesn't make something less physical.
I've yet to find a Netbook with a keyboard so small that you can't touch-type on it, simply because there are no netbooks with keyboards that small.
How the fuck would you know which netbook keyboards I can't touch type on, if you've never even met me, let alone gone netbook shopping together? Now, you might not have any problem typing on those tiny keyboards, but that that doesn't mean your experience is universal.
No a virtual keyboard would not be just as effective, because it still lacks tactile response, and still suffers the afformentioned problem of inherent software latency.
Again, you assume that tactile feedback is always a key factor for everybody in every usage situation. That's not necessarily true.
Also, how is "software latency" relevant? Your "physical" keyboard also suffers from software latency, as its input needs to be interpreted by software. In reality, with a modern processor and well-written software, software latency just isn't an issue with virtual keyboards.
Then comes the internet and blows this totally out proportion and saying that this guy thinks that gamers are generally more dangerous than bikers...
Well, what point was he trying to convey by saying this on a gaming show? Are you trying to argue that it was just a totally unrelated personal anecdote, and he didn't actually mean anything by it? That the comment was not supposed to relate to gamers in general in any way?
On the right hand we have austere government imposed morality, on the left hand we have censorship nanny state.
Except that nobody on the left is actually proposing censorship. You are confusing "populist politicians" with "leftists" - the same is true for "conservatives." There really isn't much resembling either leftism or conservatism is modern western politics, it's all just a bureaucratic mish-mash of pandering.
Are the biker gangs in his town dressed up as teddy bears with pink helmets or something?
No, that's in Sydney.
Australia must be a land of lolly pops...
Indeed. It's just that they are vegemite flavored lollipops.
According to you, there must be more Iphone software sold than Windows, because they have more downloads than on the "Windows app store"! And then according to you, this means there are more Iphone users than Windows users!
How would that be "according to me," since I never suggested anything remotely like that. I never excluded apps not downloaded from the app store as not being part of the mobile application market.
The OP's statement is a fact, supported by market share figures (I'll dig some out, if you like).
Go ahead.
Yeah, except iTunes and the App store don't actually make any money [theregister.co.uk]
Wow, a misleading Register article (is there any other kind?)
whilst the PC software business was worth $303.8bn [infoedge.com] by the start of last year, of which only at absolute most $60bn was attributable to Microsoft during that period [econsultant.com].
The post I was replying to was written from the perspective of a developer. Many developers are making significant profits from selling their applications on the app store. You're looking at the wrong end. Apple is like the retailer, its profits do not represent the whole market, as Apple gets 30% of each transaction, not all of it.
What's even more interesting, is that the app store makes it easy for individuals and small independent developers to start making money from their work - pretty much the opposite of the PC market, which requires significant marketing and investment just to be heard above the noise.
whilst Apple is still only just about breaking even with it's online stores.
But that's not true Apple is not "just about breaking even," it's making a "small profit."
If Apple were to make money from software, they would need to venture out into the world of business, but they have shown numerous times they are not interested in that.
This statement doesn't make any sense - Apple has been making lots of money from software, for years, well before the iPhone was introduced. Why does one need to sell to businesses to profit from software? You might want to mention that to game developers, because some of them seem to be doing pretty well selling to consumers.
Also, what businesses are buying mobile phone software in significant quantities?
If you're going to talk about software markets, please at least do a little bit of research to understand them first, rather than just simply making it all up as you go along.
You might want to take your own advice.
Oh we're talking about keypads, rather than keyboards? I thought you had your semantics right on this, but I guess not.
I used the word "keypad" in the very post you replied to, so how wasn't that clear?
Regardless, you'll still type faster with numeric to text pads if you've been using them long enough than you ever will be able to with a touchscreen virtual keyboard.
What evidence do you have of this? I used a Nokia with a numeric pad for text entry for years, and I hated it, could never type very quickly. But with a virtual QWERTY, I was typing much faster almost instantly.
Also, why should I learn a new scheme? That's like saying I'll type faster on a Dvorak keyboard layout if I spend enough time using it. Completely irrelevant, as I'm not about to spend time learning a Dvorak layout.
When I said I was referring to physical keyboards with the use of the term proper, that does not mean I was referring to all possible keyboards real and imaginary, including the most ludicrous ones that only a child's mind could come up with like the example you just gave.
This is your problem. You chose your words poorly. When you said "proper keyboards," you actually meant "keyboards I like," and when you redefined "proper" as "physical" you only dug yourself further into the hole - because it seems that by "physical" you only mean a certain subset of "physical" keyboards.
If by "proper" you meant "physical," then why didn't you say that? And if by "physical" you mean "keyboards I like," then why didn't you just say that in the first place?
Well no, it hasn't. You see, the term virtual is used to describe a software representation of a separate physical whole, this includes virtual keyboards, virtual memory, virtual discs, virtual CD drives and so on.
Yes, I agree that is the traditional usage - but it is baggage that we must get rid of if we want to evolve and become more sophisticated about technology. "Virtual" is a crutch, a term used by those struggling to come to terms with software and digital objects.
Just because you interface with that image of a keyboard, that piece of software, with a physical input device- your touch screen, does not make the system a physical keyboard.
But it is a physical keyboard. How else would it detect you touching it?
I'm not even sure what your goal is here, even if by some twist of the imagination globally you managed to get on-screen keyboards redefined as being physical keyboards, what would your point be exactly?
My point was that there are many different types of keyboard, and different people prefer different ones, and the physicality (or lack thereof) is not the most defining characteristic. There are some really shitty "physical" keyboards, and some really good "virtual" keyboards. My issue was with your sloppy thinking and poor assumptions.
Back to your example - what good is a netbook keyboard that's so small you can't touch-type on it? Wouldn't a virtual keyboard be just as effective in that case? What about the space the keyboard takes up? On a device that is not used mainly for typing, wouldn't adding a bulky keyboard actually be a drawback? Typing speed is not the only consideration.
Perhaps some may disagree, but all most the most ignorant zealots will agree that typing on such a physical keyboard is far easier than any touch screen implementation be it the iPhone or Android.
Seriously? Repeatedly pressing keys in some bizarre numeric-to-alpha scheme is easier than using a QWERTY touchscreen?
I think your comment reveals your own zealotry.
Because it's virtual. The touchscreen is not the keyboard, it's merely a method to interface with the virtual keyboard.
Just because Wikipedia says it, doesn't make it true. A "virtual" keyboard is just as physical as any other keyboard. Otherwise, how would it exist?
Bollocks. No one can ever reach the same typing speed on a virtual keyboard as can be achieved on a physical keyboard because of lack of true tactile response, and the inherent relative slowness of software. On screen keyboards can be pretty good, but never as good.
So, where's your evidence for this? Is typing on a "virtual keyboard" always faster than typing on, for example, a chiclet keyboard? There are some pretty horrible "physical" keyboards out there, how can you be so certain that physical keyboards are always faster?
Semantics. I clarified that by proper I meant physical.
So, by your definition, a keyboard that required one to mechanically lift a 200 pound weight, and place it on a grid with letters spaced 10 feet apart would be "proper" keyboard?
By that argument, nothing is virtual, because everything virtual, including software exists as a set of real, physical, electrons, or markings on a disk platter or whatever.
Correct. The term has always been a misnomer.
Still, to just clarify that again for you, and hence answer your question more precisely, an on screen keyboard is not a physical keyboard because of the fact it is not actually a keyboard, but merely a software representation of what we know as a keyboard
But it involves hardware elements. It doesn't exist purely in software. Otherwise, how could it detect fingers touching it?
To give you an analogy to ponder over, would you call an on screen image of an orange, a physical orange even if you could interface with that image using the touch screen to rotate it and so forth?
I would call it an image of an orange.
Don't be so hasty. Software is something that can be made for love of the art.
So can cars.
Cars require significant capital investment in fabrication equipment and materials, capital most people do not have.
Many types of software require significant capital investment that most people do not have.
many in the caring professions do count the benefit they bring to others as a significant factor in their motivations,
... while many don't.
Proper = physical.
So, any average mobile phone with a numeric keypad has a "proper" keyboard just because it has "physical" switches? I don't think you'll find many people agreeing with that.
Also, how is a touchscreen keyboard not physical? It uses touch sensors and emits light. Are those somehow against the laws of physics now?
I wont pretend I could jump straight onto a netbook keyboard and type away as flawlessly as on a normal desktop keyboard, I did make a couple more mistakes on average, but it's something you rapidly get over-
And plenty of people argue the same thing about touchscreen keyboards. Which just goes to show that the definition of a "proper" keyboard is highly subjective and variable.
Perhaps you should not have chosen that term to describe the keyboard? For many people, anything short of a full-sized keyboard that one can touch-type on is not a proper keyboard. For others, a T9 numeric keypad is their standard keyboard.
it still wasn't a match for a physical keyboard.
Again, how is a touchscreen keyboard not a physical keyboard? It exists in physical reality, so how is it not physical? It uses physical motions to detect input, so it must be physical.
it's small enough to fit in her fashionable handbag which is part of her role (to use the products she sells), but has a proper keyboard
How is it possible to have a machine that small, but also has a full-sized keyboard?
In the 80s, you bought a motherboard with lots of expansion slots... Then in the 90s, every board had built-in audio, video, and IO.
What the fuck are you talking about? Computers in the 1980s typically had very poor hardware expandability, and in the 1990s, expandability options increased dramatically.
Built-in audio, video and IO basically defines 80s era computers, while modularity is the hallmark of 90s computing.
The US market is the only real one the iphone has been successful in,
Where do you get this idea from? The iPhone is successful in many markets outside the US.
are the kind of people who use LED-backlit desktop screens on 100% brightness and contrast in a darkened room (or basement).
C'mon man, don't be so harsh and judgemental. A basement is also a room. It's not as black and white as you make it out to be.
So I can google something while composing an E-mail.
How the fuck do you type something into Google, while at the same time type something into your email client? Do you have two keyboards hooked up to your computer or something?
The iPhone is a pretty flashy toy that makes phone calls and lots of people love it for that. It really does look pretty.
Who would think that the iPhone was "pretty"? It has a simple, minimalist design, but nothing that could be described as pretty (which implies embellishment and fanciness, the exact opposite of simple minimalist design).
Sure, and piss off IT support all over the world.
IT support is constantly pissed off about everything, anyway - so what would be the difference? It's IT's job to support the users, not to act all pissy because they don't like what the user wants.
Or, like the thousands of examples that came before.....people will simply go to another website that does not have such requirements.
Riiiiiiight. They're going to go to a different site, instead of simply clicking on the link provided to download Google Chrome and install it.
I don't think you quite understand how many users YouTube has. If YouTube stops working, people won't switch to a different site, they'll switch browsers to make it work.