Well, there is a clock in the status bar and on the lock screen... but who cares about bundled software? I care what I can do with it after I get it, not what can be done with it before I get it.
Ah. So who cares that the Mac comes bundled with iLife, right? Wait--wasn't that one of those things that was so great about the Mac? The bundled software? This actually surprised me. My iPhone has this bundled app that has a countdown timer, stores times for different time-zones, etc. The iPad doesn't even have that. The Xoom, from the reviews I've read, comes with a video editor. Does the iPad? I mean, if you have to pay an extra $19 for iMovie, shouldn't that also count towards the cost? Perhaps by the time you include your bundled software, etc., that $70 difference is going to disappear.
It's rumored to be $800 (or higher), far more than the $499 base iPad which is very practical. Lots of people do not need a huge amount of storage or 3G support.
I remember back when those nasty PC guys used to compare Mac and PC prices. They'd point out the you could get a Dell for $249 and the cheapest Mac was $599. Of course, they'd leave out the fact that the Mac in question had much better specs than $249 Dell. So, are you really comparing a $499 iPad with 8GB of storage, 1024x768 screen, and no 3G, with a Xoom that has 32GB of storage, 1280x800 screen, and 3G support? Comparing the more closely equipped iPad with 32GB of storage and 3G comes to $729--$70 lower. C'mon, Fanbois! Keep your stories consistant!
If you are are comparing the iPad and XOOM I honestly can't see many people choosing the XOOM, especially when you factor in software (which is the reason why you buy a computer of any kind).
Have you really looked at the bundled software on an iPad? I mean, maybe Apple has improved this on the iPad 2, but my iPad doesn't even have a clock! If you see a Xoom sitting there doing video editing and discover that you have to pay another $19 to do that on your iPad 2, you may find that once you load up your iPad with everything that comes bundled on the Xoom, your $70 price advantage has disappeared.
Actually, correlation does imply causation. But in order to prove causation, you actually have to do real science which is really hard and takes a lot of time. So it's much easier to just imply causation and then get the laws changed, just in case, in order to protect the children, because it certainly won't hurt anything and it might help.
I was able to grasp the limits of the whole game in under half a minute.
I suppose I played a later Spacewar.
Back when I was a kid--must've been about 10 or so--the local college had a PDP-9 with a paper-tape for Spacewar. Feed in the papertape and start flipping the switches to customize. And customize you could--gravity/no gravity, computer player, warp/no warp, warp-star/no warp-star, up to three human players, partial damage, and I'm sure there were a few more.
I remember playing it for about six hours straight--two human ships against the computer (which was very good). I absolutely loved that game.
A year or two later, the college basically said that they would give away the PDP-9 to anybody who would haul it away. I was desperately called my Dad and have him come pick it up. He just laughed and someone else eventually snapped it up that day.
Valentina Tereshkova (first woman in space) said recently she'd be happy to volunteer for a one-way trip to Mars.
And, in a few weeks, she'll be 74 years old.
I'm sure you could find a bunch of people who would be willing to volunteer. The question is whether or not these people would actually be worth sending to Mars. I'd rather send a bunch of scientists (geologists, biologists, etc.) who are interested in doing research and returning to Earth in order to publish their findings than a bunch of suicidal thrill-seekers who are looking for some way to get their names in the history books.
Debatable.
In my analogy, the iBookstore is a store. Amazon and Sony's e-Book stores are also stores. iOS is the mall.
Remember that if you want to ship an App for an iOS device, it must be done through Apple's App Store. That's where we start getting into problems.
My analogy: Imagine a mall. Apple has a cute litte bookstore. Amazon has this giant multi-level warehouse-like bookstore. Sony has this tiny little kiosk.
Amazon makes a ton of money selling lots of books through their store. They have the market clout to get great prices and they keep their overhead low with their warehouse-like store. Apple has a nicer store where people will suggest books and be friendly and they make a little money. Sony makes a little money with their little-tiny kiosk.
Apple would love to make more money. Apple is also in the enviable position of owning the mall. So they tell Amazon and Sony, "Hey! You want to sell books in our mall? You have to let us sell your books in our stores at your prices and give us 30%. Don't like it? Then you can't be in our mall." If Amazon and Sony say, "Screw you," and leave the mall, Apple is now the only bookstore and if anyone in the mall wants to buy a book, Apple makes the sale. That means Apple makes more money. If Amazon and Sony say, "Okay," Apple gets 30% of Amazon's sales. It's win-win for Apple.
An effect of this: Let's say the newest Twilight/Harry Potter/whatever book comes out. Amazon manages to get exclusive rights to the book. So they advertise that they are the exclusive place to get the book. Apple then comes along and says, "Well, except for us! And we're selling it at the same price they are! Come buy it from our bookstore instead!"
Y'know, I laugh about all the Apple Fanbois who talk about companies getting "Zuned." Here's Amazon and Sony getting Zuned right there. It starts out with "We love our developers!" Then when their developers start making money, Apple says, "Oh! We'll do that, too! But we'd never use our position to compete unfairly..." And when they can't compete fairly, they play the pity card: "Oh, poor us! Amazon is making a lot of money selling content! It's not fair that we don't get any of it because we came up with the platform!" The fact that they made money selling the device seems to go right past everyone.
"That's a nice little website you have there. It'd be a shame if something happened to it. Y'know, like it suddenly being taken down because it has copyrighted material on it."
But, fortunately, the FBI never accidentally takes down websites. And, if they did, I'm sure they'd be really sorry. But these things happen, you understand...
Make a game that Wal-MArt will not carry, gamers will ignore it.
Depends.
Part of the issue has to do with distribution and marketing.
Make an AO video game and you will have to distribute it yourself. Walmart, GameStop, and the other big name places where lots of people go to buy games won't carry it. Most reviewers won't review it. So you not only have to tell people it exists and why they want to play it, you have to let them know that they won't be able to buy it the way they bought all of their other videogames. They'll probably have to jump through a few hoops. Since people are generally lazy about their entertainment, you won't make as much money.
That said, IMHO, I think that the game developers are missing out on some money by not creating AO versions of their popular 'T' or 'M' games and distributing them via their website. Hollywood loves to take the teen comedies that are a little racy PG/PG-13 and sell "not-rated" versions afterwards. Just to keep people happy, make sure that the age of the person with the credit card is over 18.
Honestly, I don't see how anyone can with a straight face say that the reason animated erotica isn't blockbuster-level successful in America is because ONE comic book based movie flopped at the box office.
This is as bad as the remake of Red Dawn, yeah for those who didn't know they are doing a remake of Red Dawn.
Actually, the Red Dawn remake is finished. The problem is that MGM is going through bankruptcy, which leaves Red Dawn hanging and waiting for a distributor. Sony may be picking it up, from what I understand.
While I'm not sure I'd agree--I've heard good things about WebOS, but have never seen it--the issue is more about concurrent background processes than concurrent UI.
You're right--the iPhone screen is pretty tightly packed and it would be pretty tough to have two UIs in that space that could be used simultaneously. That said, just because an App is in the background doesn't mean it's shut off. There are plenty of examples--listening to music from whatever source (downloaded music, streamed music, etc) while doing something else. Navigation and phone calls--I don't want to miss my turn because I was on the phone. Video/Audio recording and phone calls--if I'm watching or listening to The Big Game and a phone call comes in, I'd like to be able to go back to where I left off and see that touchdown/goal/basket/home run. Heck, just the classic--I want to get directions while talking to someone on the phone (something I did Friday night) is important.
So while the UI might switch out, giving my phone the ability to monitor, record, and give me information while another application is on the screen is very valuable.
I agree that the switch itself wouldn't necessarily void the warrantee, but it could allow you to do things with your phone that WOULD void the warrantee.
Take an iPhone as an example. I go buy a brand new iPhone and immediately jailbreak it. I then install some software that runs down the battery--it streams songs off the internet, plays them at full volume while displaying complex graphics based upon the song and my present location at full screen brightness as well as vibrating the phone in time with the music. No big deal--it's my choice. If I want to charge the phone 3 times a day, that's my choice.
9 Months later, the battery won't hold a charge. So I take my iPhone into my local Apple Store and complain that the battery died after only nine months and I want a new battery/phone for free.
Under Magnusson-Moss, Apple could legitimately claim that running that software voided the warrantee because the software drained the battery faster than normal which caused me to recharge the phone more often and lower the lifetime of the battery.
So, in theory, if you never flip that switch, you don't run the risk of voiding the warrantee. But the act of flipping the switch does not cause your warrantee to be void.
The complaint is that a good chunk of the expense of the Shuttle program is actually launching them, retrieving them, and maintaining them. Building them isn't necessarily that expensive--especially if the contracts are written with an eye on savings. I remember that there was a scandal where Rockwell was building both the Space Shuttle and the F-16. The F-16 was a fixed cost contract (eg, you build us an F-16, we give you x dollars) and the Space Shuttle was a "Cost Plus" contract (eg, spend as much as you want and we'll pay for your expenses plus y dollars). Whenever there was an issue building F-16s, Rockwell would charge the time to resolve the problem to the Space Shuttle.
Hey, I love the Space Shuttle. But it isn't really worthwhile anymore. We have a space station for low-earth orbit experiments--don't need the Space Shuttle for that (and people can stay more than a couple of weeks on the space station). Actually, one possibility would be to have NASA just turn the whole US portion of the ISS over to the National Science Foundation and let them contract with the Russians, Chinese, SpaceX, or whoever to ship people and supplies. Let NASA concentrate on getting people to high earth orbit, Lagrange Points, the Moon, Mars, etc.
I'll be curious to see how forthcoming Verizon is about your "throttled" state. The reason is that most press reports, regarding the iPhone, talk about how Verizon is about half the speed of AT&T's network. When someone gets throttled (and doesn't know it), they'll be howling to the Internet about how Verizon's network is really really really slow.
Samsung, for example, recently claimed to have sold 2 million Galaxy Tabs, but when pressed on it, stated that's how many are in stock at stores, not how many have been sold (elaborating that *actual* sales are much, much lower).
Guess what? Apple does the same thing with iPads.
I can buy iPads from Best Buy. Those shipped to Best Buy are counted in your 7.33 million iPads, as are the ones shipped to AT&T. Same with iPhones.
Y'know when they talk about "channel inventory"? That's what they're talking about.
From a warfare standpoint, I'd tend to agree. About the only advantage to weapons on the moon, pointed at Earth, is it's the proverbial doomsday device. If your country is destroyed, you can rain death upon your enemies from your moon base.
One possible use I can think of--though the technology doesn't exist--would be as a giant "spy satellite." Now, obviously, we don't have the ability to read a license plate from the Moon, which supposedly current spy satellites in orbit can do. On the other hand, a mobile system on the Moon would have three days to avoid any attempt to destroy it.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, there is a clock in the status bar and on the lock screen... but who cares about bundled software? I care what I can do with it after I get it, not what can be done with it before I get it.
Ah. So who cares that the Mac comes bundled with iLife, right? Wait--wasn't that one of those things that was so great about the Mac? The bundled software?
This actually surprised me. My iPhone has this bundled app that has a countdown timer, stores times for different time-zones, etc. The iPad doesn't even have that.
The Xoom, from the reviews I've read, comes with a video editor. Does the iPad? I mean, if you have to pay an extra $19 for iMovie, shouldn't that also count towards the cost? Perhaps by the time you include your bundled software, etc., that $70 difference is going to disappear.
It's rumored to be $800 (or higher), far more than the $499 base iPad which is very practical. Lots of people do not need a huge amount of storage or 3G support.
I remember back when those nasty PC guys used to compare Mac and PC prices. They'd point out the you could get a Dell for $249 and the cheapest Mac was $599. Of course, they'd leave out the fact that the Mac in question had much better specs than $249 Dell.
So, are you really comparing a $499 iPad with 8GB of storage, 1024x768 screen, and no 3G, with a Xoom that has 32GB of storage, 1280x800 screen, and 3G support?
Comparing the more closely equipped iPad with 32GB of storage and 3G comes to $729--$70 lower.
C'mon, Fanbois! Keep your stories consistant!
If you are are comparing the iPad and XOOM I honestly can't see many people choosing the XOOM, especially when you factor in software (which is the reason why you buy a computer of any kind).
Have you really looked at the bundled software on an iPad? I mean, maybe Apple has improved this on the iPad 2, but my iPad doesn't even have a clock! If you see a Xoom sitting there doing video editing and discover that you have to pay another $19 to do that on your iPad 2, you may find that once you load up your iPad with everything that comes bundled on the Xoom, your $70 price advantage has disappeared.
Actually, correlation does imply causation. But in order to prove causation, you actually have to do real science which is really hard and takes a lot of time. So it's much easier to just imply causation and then get the laws changed, just in case, in order to protect the children, because it certainly won't hurt anything and it might help.
I was able to grasp the limits of the whole game in under half a minute.
I suppose I played a later Spacewar. Back when I was a kid--must've been about 10 or so--the local college had a PDP-9 with a paper-tape for Spacewar. Feed in the papertape and start flipping the switches to customize. And customize you could--gravity/no gravity, computer player, warp/no warp, warp-star/no warp-star, up to three human players, partial damage, and I'm sure there were a few more.
...Among the saddest days of my life.
I remember playing it for about six hours straight--two human ships against the computer (which was very good). I absolutely loved that game.
A year or two later, the college basically said that they would give away the PDP-9 to anybody who would haul it away. I was desperately called my Dad and have him come pick it up. He just laughed and someone else eventually snapped it up that day.
Valentina Tereshkova (first woman in space) said recently she'd be happy to volunteer for a one-way trip to Mars.
And, in a few weeks, she'll be 74 years old.
I'm sure you could find a bunch of people who would be willing to volunteer. The question is whether or not these people would actually be worth sending to Mars. I'd rather send a bunch of scientists (geologists, biologists, etc.) who are interested in doing research and returning to Earth in order to publish their findings than a bunch of suicidal thrill-seekers who are looking for some way to get their names in the history books.
Nothing. What we need is something like this
Debatable.
In my analogy, the iBookstore is a store. Amazon and Sony's e-Book stores are also stores. iOS is the mall.
Remember that if you want to ship an App for an iOS device, it must be done through Apple's App Store. That's where we start getting into problems.
Or, dare I say it, raise taxes on those most able to pay higher taxes.
Gee, that would solve a whole bunch of problems, wouldn't it?
Right. However, Apple also runs the platform.
My analogy: Imagine a mall. Apple has a cute litte bookstore. Amazon has this giant multi-level warehouse-like bookstore. Sony has this tiny little kiosk.
Amazon makes a ton of money selling lots of books through their store. They have the market clout to get great prices and they keep their overhead low with their warehouse-like store. Apple has a nicer store where people will suggest books and be friendly and they make a little money. Sony makes a little money with their little-tiny kiosk.
Apple would love to make more money. Apple is also in the enviable position of owning the mall. So they tell Amazon and Sony, "Hey! You want to sell books in our mall? You have to let us sell your books in our stores at your prices and give us 30%. Don't like it? Then you can't be in our mall." If Amazon and Sony say, "Screw you," and leave the mall, Apple is now the only bookstore and if anyone in the mall wants to buy a book, Apple makes the sale. That means Apple makes more money. If Amazon and Sony say, "Okay," Apple gets 30% of Amazon's sales. It's win-win for Apple.
An effect of this: Let's say the newest Twilight/Harry Potter/whatever book comes out. Amazon manages to get exclusive rights to the book. So they advertise that they are the exclusive place to get the book. Apple then comes along and says, "Well, except for us! And we're selling it at the same price they are! Come buy it from our bookstore instead!"
Y'know, I laugh about all the Apple Fanbois who talk about companies getting "Zuned." Here's Amazon and Sony getting Zuned right there. It starts out with "We love our developers!" Then when their developers start making money, Apple says, "Oh! We'll do that, too! But we'd never use our position to compete unfairly..." And when they can't compete fairly, they play the pity card: "Oh, poor us! Amazon is making a lot of money selling content! It's not fair that we don't get any of it because we came up with the platform!" The fact that they made money selling the device seems to go right past everyone.
You owe me a new keyboard...
"That's a nice little website you have there. It'd be a shame if something happened to it. Y'know, like it suddenly being taken down because it has copyrighted material on it."
But, fortunately, the FBI never accidentally takes down websites. And, if they did, I'm sure they'd be really sorry. But these things happen, you understand...
Make a game that Wal-MArt will not carry, gamers will ignore it.
Depends.
Part of the issue has to do with distribution and marketing.
Make an AO video game and you will have to distribute it yourself. Walmart, GameStop, and the other big name places where lots of people go to buy games won't carry it. Most reviewers won't review it. So you not only have to tell people it exists and why they want to play it, you have to let them know that they won't be able to buy it the way they bought all of their other videogames. They'll probably have to jump through a few hoops. Since people are generally lazy about their entertainment, you won't make as much money.
That said, IMHO, I think that the game developers are missing out on some money by not creating AO versions of their popular 'T' or 'M' games and distributing them via their website. Hollywood loves to take the teen comedies that are a little racy PG/PG-13 and sell "not-rated" versions afterwards. Just to keep people happy, make sure that the age of the person with the credit card is over 18.
Honestly, I don't see how anyone can with a straight face say that the reason animated erotica isn't blockbuster-level successful in America is because ONE comic book based movie flopped at the box office.
I dunno, Fritz the Cat did pretty well...
This is as bad as the remake of Red Dawn, yeah for those who didn't know they are doing a remake of Red Dawn.
Actually, the Red Dawn remake is finished. The problem is that MGM is going through bankruptcy, which leaves Red Dawn hanging and waiting for a distributor. Sony may be picking it up, from what I understand.
I don't see how the courts would uphold this outside of wartime
Well, then, it's a good thing we've always been at war with Eastasia.
While I'm not sure I'd agree--I've heard good things about WebOS, but have never seen it--the issue is more about concurrent background processes than concurrent UI.
You're right--the iPhone screen is pretty tightly packed and it would be pretty tough to have two UIs in that space that could be used simultaneously. That said, just because an App is in the background doesn't mean it's shut off. There are plenty of examples--listening to music from whatever source (downloaded music, streamed music, etc) while doing something else. Navigation and phone calls--I don't want to miss my turn because I was on the phone. Video/Audio recording and phone calls--if I'm watching or listening to The Big Game and a phone call comes in, I'd like to be able to go back to where I left off and see that touchdown/goal/basket/home run. Heck, just the classic--I want to get directions while talking to someone on the phone (something I did Friday night) is important.
So while the UI might switch out, giving my phone the ability to monitor, record, and give me information while another application is on the screen is very valuable.
I agree that the switch itself wouldn't necessarily void the warrantee, but it could allow you to do things with your phone that WOULD void the warrantee.
Take an iPhone as an example. I go buy a brand new iPhone and immediately jailbreak it. I then install some software that runs down the battery--it streams songs off the internet, plays them at full volume while displaying complex graphics based upon the song and my present location at full screen brightness as well as vibrating the phone in time with the music. No big deal--it's my choice. If I want to charge the phone 3 times a day, that's my choice.
9 Months later, the battery won't hold a charge. So I take my iPhone into my local Apple Store and complain that the battery died after only nine months and I want a new battery/phone for free.
Under Magnusson-Moss, Apple could legitimately claim that running that software voided the warrantee because the software drained the battery faster than normal which caused me to recharge the phone more often and lower the lifetime of the battery.
So, in theory, if you never flip that switch, you don't run the risk of voiding the warrantee. But the act of flipping the switch does not cause your warrantee to be void.
Enter text? Copy? Paste?
Text? You mean like "typing"? How quaint!
Why can't I just speak and have it enter the text? Why am I pounding away on this technology from the 1800s?
I say what I want. When I want to adjust it, the text of what I said will appear and I can select it and move it around as necessary.
The complaint is that a good chunk of the expense of the Shuttle program is actually launching them, retrieving them, and maintaining them. Building them isn't necessarily that expensive--especially if the contracts are written with an eye on savings. I remember that there was a scandal where Rockwell was building both the Space Shuttle and the F-16. The F-16 was a fixed cost contract (eg, you build us an F-16, we give you x dollars) and the Space Shuttle was a "Cost Plus" contract (eg, spend as much as you want and we'll pay for your expenses plus y dollars). Whenever there was an issue building F-16s, Rockwell would charge the time to resolve the problem to the Space Shuttle.
Hey, I love the Space Shuttle. But it isn't really worthwhile anymore. We have a space station for low-earth orbit experiments--don't need the Space Shuttle for that (and people can stay more than a couple of weeks on the space station). Actually, one possibility would be to have NASA just turn the whole US portion of the ISS over to the National Science Foundation and let them contract with the Russians, Chinese, SpaceX, or whoever to ship people and supplies. Let NASA concentrate on getting people to high earth orbit, Lagrange Points, the Moon, Mars, etc.
I'll be curious to see how forthcoming Verizon is about your "throttled" state. The reason is that most press reports, regarding the iPhone, talk about how Verizon is about half the speed of AT&T's network. When someone gets throttled (and doesn't know it), they'll be howling to the Internet about how Verizon's network is really really really slow.
Samsung, for example, recently claimed to have sold 2 million Galaxy Tabs, but when pressed on it, stated that's how many are in stock at stores, not how many have been sold (elaborating that *actual* sales are much, much lower).
Guess what? Apple does the same thing with iPads.
I can buy iPads from Best Buy. Those shipped to Best Buy are counted in your 7.33 million iPads, as are the ones shipped to AT&T. Same with iPhones.
Y'know when they talk about "channel inventory"? That's what they're talking about.
Why shouldn't the maker of a platform ... pay for some devs to write for it!?
iFund.
I gotta admit, that was one of the things that kind of made me a little queasy.
As I understand it, the crew compartment dropped from about 65,000 feet. That's a long way down--plenty of time to consider your approaching demise.
Brrrrr...
"What was the official drink for the mission?"
"Ocean spray.
Well, NASA tried, but they couldn't get 7-Up."
From a warfare standpoint, I'd tend to agree. About the only advantage to weapons on the moon, pointed at Earth, is it's the proverbial doomsday device. If your country is destroyed, you can rain death upon your enemies from your moon base.
One possible use I can think of--though the technology doesn't exist--would be as a giant "spy satellite." Now, obviously, we don't have the ability to read a license plate from the Moon, which supposedly current spy satellites in orbit can do. On the other hand, a mobile system on the Moon would have three days to avoid any attempt to destroy it.