but Google's apparently got a decent idea, as do Morotola, HP, Acer, Archos, Sony, HTC, LG, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Samsung. By and far, these companies outsell Apple and it's not because Apple knows better than they do what their customers want.
Only Samsung outsells Apple. The other companies do not.
If you're talking about iOS vs. Android, then you need to compare all iOS devices such as the iPhone AND the iPad AND the iPod touch. It's tricky because Apple doesn't break out iPod touch sales numbers, But just to play a game (don't worry, Samsung still wins)...
Apple sold 26 million iPhones and 17 million iPads. They sold 8.6 million iPods. Supposedly, the iPod touch is the most popular, so we'll give it 50%, or 4.3 million for a grand total of 47.3 million iOS devices sold. Samsung sold 50 million smartphones, but only about 2.4 million tablets to bump them up to 52.4 million Android devices.
So Samsung still comes out ahead--though the gap is much closer. But I doubt that Amazon sold more than 50 million Kindle Fire tablets last quarter and they're about the only ones besides Samsung who've allegedly even come close to competing with Apple in sales.
Production of applications, games, graphics, video and audio has to be done somewhere, and it won't be on touch devices, which are almost purely for consumption.
Well, somewhat true. And here's where the universe starts to get tricky.
First, what's to say that production has to be done on a personal computer. Terminal Services and Virtualization could give you a desktop interface on your tablet. Heck, there's no reason that I couldn't just have my tools "in the cloud" and write code on my tablet. When I hit the "compile" button, the code gets compiled "in the cloud" and I get back a binary suitable for testing on my device. Heck, Xcode has something similar to this, where I can farm out compiles to different machines, so this is certainly not impossible. Same with graphics, video, and audio.
Second, your arguments are basically, "I need the kind of precision I can only get from a mouse." But that's really a UI issue. If I need to move something two pixels to the left, I zoom in and get the higher precision that I need. Heck, I do that now with my mouse. As long as I can quickly zoom in and out, I'm not sure I see the problem.
Third, while I agree with you regarding keyboards, it might also be because I am used to a keyboard. I've been amazed by Blackberry Addicts, for example, who can type as fast as I can on a "tiny" keyboard. If I spent a month or two with just an on-screen keyboard, I imagine that I would probably get pretty good with it. Sort of like the Dvorak fans who love their Dvorak keyboards, once they get used to it.
Tablets are a fad that will go the way of the netbook, and faster.
I'm not so sure.
The Netbook wasn't really a different paradigm. The Netbook was a small and low-powered laptop running a "smaller" OS (Windows XP, Linux). Now, as a software developer, the theory is that I don't have to change my software to work on a Netbook, no matter how many they sell.
But if I want to port my software to an Android or iOS tablet, I have to rewrite stuff. With that rewrite may come so new ideas about how I do these things--is it worthwhile to include a cloud-type component to perform tasks? How do I fit my complex UI into a simple tablet interface?
Tablet sales really don't mean much because people are not replacing desktops with tablets. They are using tablets in addition to desktops.
How would we know this?
I'm not disagreeing with you, but is there some study that shows tablet sales increasing and more desktop systems in landfills/recycling centers?
I mean, most people assumed that laptops replaced desktops because (a) laptop sales went up while desktop sales went down and (b) people said they were replacing their desktops with laptops. So at the moment we have tablet sales going up while desktop sales are slowly going down. Are we just waiting for people to proclaim, "I have replaced my desktop with a tablet"?
Agreed. Isn't this the whole "Apple Store" argument: "It's their store and they can do what they want?"
The difference between the two, of course, is that Apple owns the store and is also the mayor of the town and makes sure that nobody else opens a store in their town. Don't like it? Move to a different town.
Google is welcome to make these changes. If developers don't like it, they can still sell their applications. They can go through Amazon's Appstore, Opera Mobile App Store, GetJar, AndAppStore, Handango, onlyAndroid Superstore, Insyde Market, Appoke, and various others. They can also sell them via their own website or they could even put it on a CD and sell it through a real-world store in a box or something. I know--how quaint.
Electric consumption per household is on the increase [...]
Citation? I'm just curious...
With the raft of more energy efficient lightbulbs, TVs, Refrigerators, Computers, etc., I would think that it would be trending down. Or are you talking about the fact that we have more toys to recharge (tablets, phones, etc.)?
That may well be. But one difference between those missions and this mission is the number of steps involved.
Consider the current Mars rovers. What had to work? Heat shield and parachute and inflators. Consider the Mars Polar Lander. What had to work? Heat shield and landing rockets. Consider this mission. What has to work? Heat shield and parachute and hovering rockets and crane. There's a lot more that can go wrong.
That's not to say it will go wrong. It's easier to predict gloom and doom because if it happens, you're right and if it doesn't happen, nobody will care.
As I've said before, I do believe that we landed on the Moon. But I enjoy playing a little devil's advocate. So, with that said...
The images are obviously real. And they show that something on the Moon changes according to the day. The assumption is that it is the flag. But it could be any oddly shaped thing.
So were I a conspiracy theorist, I'd point out that we never said that there weren't missions to the Moon. But were there any people on board? NASA proved that they could land on the Moon with the Surveyor missions. So these could easily be Apollo landers that were sent to the Moon in order to echo back radio messages to convince people that they were originating on the Moon. They could drop a flag and such off before landing.
Heck, I should be on "Dancing with the Stars!"
As an aside, I've never really heard from the conspiracy theorists on this one: Were Apollo 8 and Apollo 10 faked? Apollo 8 was the mission that flew around the Moon. Apollo 10 was the one that went to the Moon with a LEM but didn't actually land. The whole "leaving the Van Allen belts would kill the astronauts" theory would seem to imply that those missions must have been faked.
I am not a telescope designer, but from what I understand, telescopes have sort of a fixed distance that they can focus in on. So a telescope that can show you Mars, for example, won't give you a really good close-up of your neighbor's left nipple as she stands naked in the window.
`Valuing privacy and refusing to participate in information sharing with a company that will only use it in ways you don't approve of hardly makes you suspicious.
That's what all mass murderers say. Want to dig yourself in deeper?
Well, one difference is that you can find books about selling stuff via Amazon (eg, Amazon partners). So if you sell widgets and want people to buy your widgets via the Internet, one way of doing this is to become an Amazon partner and they'll do all the hard web stuff for you. I see plenty of books about that.
What I don't see are books about self-publishing on Amazon--unless they also mention iBooks (like this one.)
I believe Google preferred to retain that feature as a competitive advantage [...]
It fits in nicely with the whole "Google versus Apple" battle, but I don't see it. Why would Google not want iOS to use Google maps? They want everybody to use Google maps. I can't believe that Google would do that.
That said, I could certainly believe that Google went around and tried to renegotiate and basically got told, "Yeah, sure, for (giant sum of money)," which they then tried to pass on to Apple. Apple said, "We can find someone to do it cheaper--your loss."
Apple itself reduced estimates for its next quarter (ie, they are not releasing iPhone 5 anytime soon)
(Whiny Fanboi Voice) Yeah, but, but, when Apple releases the iPhone 5, they'll bury Samsung! And if they don't, it'll only be because they just can't make them fast enough to keep up with demand! You'll see!
2. Restrictions on Use. Unless you have received prior written authorization from Google (or, as applicable, from the provider of particular Content), you must not: [...] (f) use the Service or Content with any products, systems, or applications for or in connection with (i) real time navigation or route guidance, including but not limited to turn-by-turn route guidance that is synchronized to the position of a user's sensor-enabled device
So the question is, did Apple try to get prior written authorization and Google declined their request? Or did they just say, "We'll get our map data from somewhere else because we don't like Google anymore."
A quick jaunt around the world will show you that Google has licensed map data from lots of different companies: GeoBasis, TeleAtlas, AfriGIS, MapLink, Mapcity, Inav/Geosistemas, INEGI, and I'm sure some others I have missed. Apple could run around and try to sign similar licenses with all those companies to use Google's map data, or they could just find someone else.
I write programs for a living. I also do it for fun. It's not particularly far-fetched.
Back in 1986 or so, I noticed that I didn't really have a convenient way to keep track of telephone numbers. So I wrote a Desk Accessory for my Mac to do just that. At the time, my job didn't include programming so I wrote it in my spare time. When it seemed like it was working pretty well, I binhexed it up and put it on one of those shareware boards with the request that the users send me whatever they would like.
I got $5 from some guy in Australia. I sent it back with a newer version on a floppy disk and asked him for $5 of Australian money, since I'd never seen Australian money before. I still have that money sitting around in a box somewhere.
The reward isn't always about a paycheck. Sometimes it's just fun to do things.
I think his point, however poorly made, was that if they did switch to micro-USB, there would have to be more ports to supplement the additional capabilities the dock connector is used for (line-level analog audio, analog and HDMI video, additional power options, etc)
Yeah, because there is absolutely no way you can do audio or video over USB.
C'mon, Apple! You got rid of ADB once the rest of the world caught up! You can certainly do it again.
I don't know if Google's store does this, but when you look at an App that uses in-store purchases, it shows you the most popular purchases. This has helped me find those sorts of games and apps (ie, the "free" apps that are not really free) and steer clear of them.
Most of the apps I have installed I had to discover elsewhere [...]
Actually, Apple's store and various others have the same problem.
One thing the developers have been "sold" on is that these App Stores will allow people to find your app, which is why they are better than doing everything yourself. After all, running a website and handling the payments and everything else is a lot of work. By having one central repository, so the story goes, people can go there and find your app and buy it and you don't have to do anything but write your app! Bliss!
Of course, the reality is that you'll get a week or two in the "Just Added" section and, after that, it's up to you. That's all the promotion you're going to get, so you'd better have a plan for afterwards.
But let's try to be part of the solution: How would you suggest that Google improve "discoverability"?
My Grandmother had Cable TV because she lived in a valley with big ol' hills on all sides of her. Cable TV was once "Community Antenna" TV and the idea was that you put a big ol' antenna at the top of the hill and then distribute the programming to the people in the valley.
So what it meant was that she could get all the broadcast channels--ABC (Channel 8), NBC (Channel 4), CBS (Channel 3), and PBS (Channel 11) stations--and the picture looked great whereas if she stuck an antenna on her roof, she'd be lucky to pick up anything. But she still saw all the advertisements.
Later on, as I understand it, the companies that did this also mixed a satellite dish in there and gave people HBO for an extra amount. You could also get WTBS out of Atlanta and other "super stations"--but you still saw the advertising.
Now if you had your own satellite dish, you could skip the local advertising. Years ago, the company I worked for had a satellite dish and I remember watching Monday Night Football directly from the ABC satellite. You saw the network ads and then you were treated to several minutes of broadcasters chatting, shots of attractive women in the stands, and anything else that caught some producer's eye.
Slashdot Mirror
but Google's apparently got a decent idea, as do Morotola, HP, Acer, Archos, Sony, HTC, LG, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Samsung. By and far, these companies outsell Apple and it's not because Apple knows better than they do what their customers want.
Only Samsung outsells Apple. The other companies do not.
If you're talking about iOS vs. Android, then you need to compare all iOS devices such as the iPhone AND the iPad AND the iPod touch. It's tricky because Apple doesn't break out iPod touch sales numbers, But just to play a game (don't worry, Samsung still wins)...
Apple sold 26 million iPhones and 17 million iPads. They sold 8.6 million iPods. Supposedly, the iPod touch is the most popular, so we'll give it 50%, or 4.3 million for a grand total of 47.3 million iOS devices sold. Samsung sold 50 million smartphones, but only about 2.4 million tablets to bump them up to 52.4 million Android devices.
So Samsung still comes out ahead--though the gap is much closer. But I doubt that Amazon sold more than 50 million Kindle Fire tablets last quarter and they're about the only ones besides Samsung who've allegedly even come close to competing with Apple in sales.
Production of applications, games, graphics, video and audio has to be done somewhere, and it won't be on touch devices, which are almost purely for consumption.
Well, somewhat true. And here's where the universe starts to get tricky.
First, what's to say that production has to be done on a personal computer. Terminal Services and Virtualization could give you a desktop interface on your tablet. Heck, there's no reason that I couldn't just have my tools "in the cloud" and write code on my tablet. When I hit the "compile" button, the code gets compiled "in the cloud" and I get back a binary suitable for testing on my device. Heck, Xcode has something similar to this, where I can farm out compiles to different machines, so this is certainly not impossible. Same with graphics, video, and audio.
Second, your arguments are basically, "I need the kind of precision I can only get from a mouse." But that's really a UI issue. If I need to move something two pixels to the left, I zoom in and get the higher precision that I need. Heck, I do that now with my mouse. As long as I can quickly zoom in and out, I'm not sure I see the problem.
Third, while I agree with you regarding keyboards, it might also be because I am used to a keyboard. I've been amazed by Blackberry Addicts, for example, who can type as fast as I can on a "tiny" keyboard. If I spent a month or two with just an on-screen keyboard, I imagine that I would probably get pretty good with it. Sort of like the Dvorak fans who love their Dvorak keyboards, once they get used to it.
Tablets are a fad that will go the way of the netbook, and faster.
I'm not so sure.
The Netbook wasn't really a different paradigm. The Netbook was a small and low-powered laptop running a "smaller" OS (Windows XP, Linux). Now, as a software developer, the theory is that I don't have to change my software to work on a Netbook, no matter how many they sell.
But if I want to port my software to an Android or iOS tablet, I have to rewrite stuff. With that rewrite may come so new ideas about how I do these things--is it worthwhile to include a cloud-type component to perform tasks? How do I fit my complex UI into a simple tablet interface?
Tablet sales really don't mean much because people are not replacing desktops with tablets. They are using tablets in addition to desktops.
How would we know this?
I'm not disagreeing with you, but is there some study that shows tablet sales increasing and more desktop systems in landfills/recycling centers?
I mean, most people assumed that laptops replaced desktops because (a) laptop sales went up while desktop sales went down and (b) people said they were replacing their desktops with laptops. So at the moment we have tablet sales going up while desktop sales are slowly going down. Are we just waiting for people to proclaim, "I have replaced my desktop with a tablet"?
No, I'm CommonsGuy!
Agreed. Isn't this the whole "Apple Store" argument: "It's their store and they can do what they want?"
The difference between the two, of course, is that Apple owns the store and is also the mayor of the town and makes sure that nobody else opens a store in their town. Don't like it? Move to a different town.
Google is welcome to make these changes. If developers don't like it, they can still sell their applications. They can go through Amazon's Appstore, Opera Mobile App Store, GetJar, AndAppStore, Handango, onlyAndroid Superstore, Insyde Market, Appoke, and various others. They can also sell them via their own website or they could even put it on a CD and sell it through a real-world store in a box or something. I know--how quaint.
Electric consumption per household is on the increase [...]
Citation? I'm just curious...
With the raft of more energy efficient lightbulbs, TVs, Refrigerators, Computers, etc., I would think that it would be trending down. Or are you talking about the fact that we have more toys to recharge (tablets, phones, etc.)?
That may well be. But one difference between those missions and this mission is the number of steps involved.
Consider the current Mars rovers. What had to work? Heat shield and parachute and inflators. Consider the Mars Polar Lander. What had to work? Heat shield and landing rockets. Consider this mission. What has to work? Heat shield and parachute and hovering rockets and crane. There's a lot more that can go wrong.
That's not to say it will go wrong. It's easier to predict gloom and doom because if it happens, you're right and if it doesn't happen, nobody will care.
But his only competition is Wil Wheaton?
Shatner FTW.
Hurrdurrr, old operating system was broken, so that's a reason NOT to upgrade to a new one that includes bug fixes [...]
...and pay $20 for the privilege, no less!
As I've said before, I do believe that we landed on the Moon. But I enjoy playing a little devil's advocate. So, with that said...
The images are obviously real. And they show that something on the Moon changes according to the day. The assumption is that it is the flag. But it could be any oddly shaped thing.
So were I a conspiracy theorist, I'd point out that we never said that there weren't missions to the Moon. But were there any people on board? NASA proved that they could land on the Moon with the Surveyor missions. So these could easily be Apollo landers that were sent to the Moon in order to echo back radio messages to convince people that they were originating on the Moon. They could drop a flag and such off before landing.
Heck, I should be on "Dancing with the Stars!"
As an aside, I've never really heard from the conspiracy theorists on this one: Were Apollo 8 and Apollo 10 faked? Apollo 8 was the mission that flew around the Moon. Apollo 10 was the one that went to the Moon with a LEM but didn't actually land. The whole "leaving the Van Allen belts would kill the astronauts" theory would seem to imply that those missions must have been faked.
I am not a telescope designer, but from what I understand, telescopes have sort of a fixed distance that they can focus in on. So a telescope that can show you Mars, for example, won't give you a really good close-up of your neighbor's left nipple as she stands naked in the window.
`Valuing privacy and refusing to participate in information sharing with a company that will only use it in ways you don't approve of hardly makes you suspicious.
That's what all mass murderers say. Want to dig yourself in deeper?
Pleased to meet you, Mr. Smith. My name is Min-jun Kim.
Perhaps you know my friend, James Smith?
Well, one difference is that you can find books about selling stuff via Amazon (eg, Amazon partners). So if you sell widgets and want people to buy your widgets via the Internet, one way of doing this is to become an Amazon partner and they'll do all the hard web stuff for you. I see plenty of books about that.
What I don't see are books about self-publishing on Amazon--unless they also mention iBooks (like this one.)
Don't believe everything you read.
"[Google] is believed to have angered Apple leaders by withholding the Street View [...]"
My iPhone 4S supports Street View in the default Maps application. Sounds like the only person who "believed" it was the writer.
Like I said, it makes a good story. Corporate intrigue, behemoths jockeying for position, etc. The truth is usually far more boring.
I believe Google preferred to retain that feature as a competitive advantage [...]
It fits in nicely with the whole "Google versus Apple" battle, but I don't see it. Why would Google not want iOS to use Google maps? They want everybody to use Google maps. I can't believe that Google would do that.
That said, I could certainly believe that Google went around and tried to renegotiate and basically got told, "Yeah, sure, for (giant sum of money)," which they then tried to pass on to Apple. Apple said, "We can find someone to do it cheaper--your loss."
Apple itself reduced estimates for its next quarter (ie, they are not releasing iPhone 5 anytime soon)
(Whiny Fanboi Voice) Yeah, but, but, when Apple releases the iPhone 5, they'll bury Samsung! And if they don't, it'll only be because they just can't make them fast enough to keep up with demand! You'll see!
In Apple's defense, from Google Maps' Terms of Use:
So the question is, did Apple try to get prior written authorization and Google declined their request? Or did they just say, "We'll get our map data from somewhere else because we don't like Google anymore."
In Google's defense, they license some of their data from elsewhere and they may be restricted as to what they can allow others to do. For example, looking at Japan, down in the lower right of the screen we see "Map Data © 2012 Google, ZENRIN" Zenrin is a company that Google uses, I assume, for some Japanese map data. They can use the data for their purposes, but they cannot sublicense that data for other purposes. If Apple wanted to use that data the same way as Google via Google's Maps API, they'd have to also license the data from Zenrin.
A quick jaunt around the world will show you that Google has licensed map data from lots of different companies: GeoBasis, TeleAtlas, AfriGIS, MapLink, Mapcity, Inav/Geosistemas, INEGI, and I'm sure some others I have missed. Apple could run around and try to sign similar licenses with all those companies to use Google's map data, or they could just find someone else.
I believe the issue isn't so much "local search" but "local search combined with internet search in one UI."
Of course, Apple doesn't actually do this--the Search box on my iPhone doesn't search the Internet and Siri can't search my local phone.
I write programs for a living. I also do it for fun. It's not particularly far-fetched.
Back in 1986 or so, I noticed that I didn't really have a convenient way to keep track of telephone numbers. So I wrote a Desk Accessory for my Mac to do just that. At the time, my job didn't include programming so I wrote it in my spare time. When it seemed like it was working pretty well, I binhexed it up and put it on one of those shareware boards with the request that the users send me whatever they would like.
I got $5 from some guy in Australia. I sent it back with a newer version on a floppy disk and asked him for $5 of Australian money, since I'd never seen Australian money before. I still have that money sitting around in a box somewhere.
The reward isn't always about a paycheck. Sometimes it's just fun to do things.
Yeah, because there is absolutely no way you can do audio or video over USB.
C'mon, Apple! You got rid of ADB once the rest of the world caught up! You can certainly do it again.
I don't know if Google's store does this, but when you look at an App that uses in-store purchases, it shows you the most popular purchases. This has helped me find those sorts of games and apps (ie, the "free" apps that are not really free) and steer clear of them.
Most of the apps I have installed I had to discover elsewhere [...]
Actually, Apple's store and various others have the same problem.
One thing the developers have been "sold" on is that these App Stores will allow people to find your app, which is why they are better than doing everything yourself. After all, running a website and handling the payments and everything else is a lot of work. By having one central repository, so the story goes, people can go there and find your app and buy it and you don't have to do anything but write your app! Bliss!
Of course, the reality is that you'll get a week or two in the "Just Added" section and, after that, it's up to you. That's all the promotion you're going to get, so you'd better have a plan for afterwards.
But let's try to be part of the solution: How would you suggest that Google improve "discoverability"?
Yeah, but where are you going to find a three-prong plug in 25 years?
Maybe if you flash froze some gerbils and a wheel... :^D
Well, if you want to be technical about it...
My Grandmother had Cable TV because she lived in a valley with big ol' hills on all sides of her. Cable TV was once "Community Antenna" TV and the idea was that you put a big ol' antenna at the top of the hill and then distribute the programming to the people in the valley.
So what it meant was that she could get all the broadcast channels--ABC (Channel 8), NBC (Channel 4), CBS (Channel 3), and PBS (Channel 11) stations--and the picture looked great whereas if she stuck an antenna on her roof, she'd be lucky to pick up anything. But she still saw all the advertisements.
Later on, as I understand it, the companies that did this also mixed a satellite dish in there and gave people HBO for an extra amount. You could also get WTBS out of Atlanta and other "super stations"--but you still saw the advertising.
Now if you had your own satellite dish, you could skip the local advertising. Years ago, the company I worked for had a satellite dish and I remember watching Monday Night Football directly from the ABC satellite. You saw the network ads and then you were treated to several minutes of broadcasters chatting, shots of attractive women in the stands, and anything else that caught some producer's eye.