To be fair, I think Apple can do both - innovate, and sue.
Apple has been copying features and playing catch up for a while. Here are some features Android had before iPhone, that Apple later implemented:
-Multitasking -Drop-down notification bar -Using apps from the lock screen -Front facing camera -Over the air updates -Wireless syncing -Customizable wallpapers
I see nothing wrong with Apple copying those features since they're obvious and shouldn't be patentable. The problem is Apple implements those features and calls it innovating, but when other companies do the same thing Apple sues. It's a double standard.
Actually, you can have a smart phone without a data plan.
One of my friends bought a used iPhone 3 from another buddy for $30. He signed up for a basic $20/month AT&T plan (no data, just minutes). A few months goes by and AT&T catches wind of this. They contact him and give him an ultimatum: he either upgrades to a more expensive smartphone plan or they drop him. He ended up dropping AT&T instead.
I'm in a similar situation. I own a Nexus S but I don't use any data, just wifi with very light cell usage.. yet I'm forced to pay $40/month for a "smartphone plan". Such a nice little racket they have going. I'm not entirely sure how it's even legal but they get away with it.
Doom and Quake also became hugely successful during that time period, though it's hard to say how much of that was piracy versus id Software's successful shareware business.
Bad example. Users have been releasing mods since Skyrim came out, and the Creation Kit hasn't been released yet. Users will find a way to mod a game with or without the developer's assistance.
It takes some tweaking to get it to look like Firefox 3.x:
1. Right click one of the toolbars to bring up the context menu and enable "Menu Bar" and disable "Tabs on Top" 2. Right click the navigation toolbar and select customize. Drag the home button to the left of the address bar and add the stop and reload buttons* 3. Download the Status-4-Ever extension to get a proper status bar 4. Set browser.urlbar.formatting.enabled to false in about:config (this disable url highlighting in the address bar) 5. Set browser.urlbar.trimURLs to false in about:config (this will show the protocol name in the address bar, i.e http:/// ) 6. Download a classic theme (Optional)
*Note: The behaviour of the stop and reload buttons depends on the order in which you place them next to each other. If you place the stop button to the left of the reload button they will appear as two seperate buttons, but if you place the stop button to the right of the reload button it will appear as a single reload/stop button with combined functionality.
1. You can change the undo limit by going to Preferences > General > Editors > Text Editors and change "Undo History Size" from 200 to whatever you want.
2. You can revert a file by right clicking the file in the Package Explorer panel and then use Replace With -> Local History...
3. ADB loses connection once in a while, shouldn't happen that often though... If you cant see log output in eclipse make sure you have the emulated device selected in the DDMS perspective.
4. Why do you need cygwin to do android development?
5. Different devices need different drivers with Windows... this is true for all devices on Windows, not just android phones. It would be nice if there was a generic android driver that worked with all phones, but I'm not sure how feasible that would be..
That was my main complaint with Oblivion and I'm glad to say in Skyrim the new leveling system is much better. Every time you level you choose to increase your Magicka, Health or Stamina by 10 points (there's no Dexterity or Strength stats anymore). You also gain 1 perk which you can place into one of the ~20 skill trees.
Step 1. Collect patent royalties from every Android device that Samsung sells Step 2. Turn around and give that money back to Samsung to push Windows Phone 7 Step 3. ??? Step 4. Profit
I agree. I was really looking forward to the Nexus Prime and 4.0, but this is just embarrassing... it's so unpolished and amateurish. The color scheme, fonts, and icons on my stock Nexus S look 100x better.
I'm still looking forward to some of the new sdk features though.
What's the difference between me buying a game and playing it online for a year, versus me buying a game and playing it online for 6 months, then selling it and having a second person play it for another 6 months?
They both use the same theoretical amount of bandwidth, and Sony gets the same amount of money in either case aswell. This is just Sony being douchebags and attempting to squeeze extra money out of people.
If you use Adblock Plus there's a really nice filter to remove all social media crap, not just facebook. It's called Antisocial and you can find it here: http://adblockplus.org/en/subscriptions (it's at the very bottom in the Miscellaneous section).
Like I mentioned in another thread, David Gerard has an axe to grind with Google for some reason. My guess is he's just stirring up shit to drive page hits to NewsTechnica. Look at his submission history: http://slashdot.org/~David+Gerard/submissions
I bought a new video card recently, it came with a free copy of Dirt 3 so I decided to install it and check it out. After playing it for 5 minutes I decided I didn't like it so I uninstalled it. I later looked at my programs list and saw 3-5 things that were still installed, Windows Live Gaming, Blue Ripple Audio, etc.. I was pretty pissed to say the least. Also, around a month ago I decided to check out League of Legends since most of my friends play it. Mid install I see that it installed some "Pando Media Booster" crap, so I cancelled the install and removed all traces of it.
A few years ago I downloaded the demo of Unreal Tournament 3 and noticed that it installed some Aegia Physx software and drivers on my system. I emailed Mark Rein (the CEO of Epic Games) to complain. He promptly emailed me back and explained to me that Aegia Physx was required to play the game and that the game wouldn't function without it. I emailed him back again, letting him know that I had already uninstalled the Aegia drivers and the game still ran fine. Basically he was full of shit and just trying to push Aegia Physx on his customers (they probably had some financial arrangement). I also told him that he lost a loyal customer, having purchased UT2k3 and UT2k4, and that he wouldn't be getting any more of my money.
Is it too much to ask for software without the crap?
I bought a Google Nexus S a few months ago and I'm loving it. It's extremely fast, developer friendly, and the stock UI is very nice (I'm not a fan of the HTC or Motorola UIs).
1. Came with Android 2.3.3, got the 2.3.4 upgrade as soon as it was available. The only issue I have with 2.3.4 is the wifi/3g icons in the notification area grey out when they shouldn't (well known issue).
2. Has 16GB internal storage, but no sd card slot. 1GB is reserved for applications (I'm not sure why they put in that arbitrary limit when theres 16GB available). Still happy overall, I don't need an sd card and I prefer having the 16GB internal storage.
3. The Nexus S is about as open as you can get. It's extremely easy to root if you want that (I haven't bothered to since I'm happy with the stock firmware at the moment).
Hopefully Google opens up Motorola and we get to see more phones like the Nexus One/S.
I want to delete my facebook profile and switch to google+ fulltime. Unfortunately almost all of my friends and family still use facebook, though some of them have google+ accounts aswell. What exactly can I do to get them to switch over? No one wants to use a service that has no activity and no users. It's a chicken and egg problem.
For the time being I've gone back to using email almost exclusively. I never used 99% of the facebook features anyway, I disabled the wall, didnt post pictures, etc.. I basically just used facebook as messaging/email service (though it has the worst interface that I've ever seen for that purpose).
Other companies aren't going to drop Android when they're making insane amounts of cash off it. It's not like they can license and sell iOS devices, and WP7 has a tiny market, their only option is Android.
HTC was a no-name taiwanese handset maker until android came along. Now HTC is one of the top 4 handset makers in the world, virtually overnight. Samsung is doing extremely well too. They sold 19 million android handsets last quarter and they'll probably pass Apple later this year.
I doubt HTC and Samsung are worried about Google entering the fray. I say it's a good thing, more competition, cheaper/better phones, etc. Maybe Google can clean up and improve Motorola's horrible firmware while they're at it.
I agree. Though Microsoft basically did the same thing with Internet Explorer and got into a lot of hot water, so it's hard to say.
Last I checked Apple controls their platform pretty tightly aswell and forces you to use the iTunes store for everything. Why isn't Apple being investigated for not allowing competiting app stores (without jailbreaking). Why is Apple allowed to tie their services to their platform and Google isn't? Seems a bit ridiculous to me.
Anti-competitive laws are exactly this - you should not use your monopoly in another area to gain unfair advantage in other market.
Google doesn't have a monopoly on smart phones, search, mail or any other service. There is a pretty healthy level of competition at the moment. There is nothing stopping vendors or customers from customizing android with non-google services. Again, I fail to see how google has a monopoly on anything.
Apple ties iphones with itunes, I fail to see why google can't do whatever they want with their own platform.
Slashdot Mirror
Runes and jewels weren't added until LOD if I remember correctly. I'm sure they'll add them again.. in the next expansion.
You jest, but people were actually responding like that in droves on the steam forums after the original f2p announcement.
Apple has been copying features and playing catch up for a while. Here are some features Android had before iPhone, that Apple later implemented:
-Multitasking
-Drop-down notification bar
-Using apps from the lock screen
-Front facing camera
-Over the air updates
-Wireless syncing
-Customizable wallpapers
I see nothing wrong with Apple copying those features since they're obvious and shouldn't be patentable. The problem is Apple implements those features and calls it innovating, but when other companies do the same thing Apple sues. It's a double standard.
One of my friends bought a used iPhone 3 from another buddy for $30. He signed up for a basic $20/month AT&T plan (no data, just minutes). A few months goes by and AT&T catches wind of this. They contact him and give him an ultimatum: he either upgrades to a more expensive smartphone plan or they drop him. He ended up dropping AT&T instead.
I'm in a similar situation. I own a Nexus S but I don't use any data, just wifi with very light cell usage.. yet I'm forced to pay $40/month for a "smartphone plan". Such a nice little racket they have going. I'm not entirely sure how it's even legal but they get away with it.
Doom and Quake also became hugely successful during that time period, though it's hard to say how much of that was piracy versus id Software's successful shareware business.
Bad example. Users have been releasing mods since Skyrim came out, and the Creation Kit hasn't been released yet. Users will find a way to mod a game with or without the developer's assistance.
Whats wrong with the current back/forward buttons? Are you talking about the oversized back button with the smaller forward button?
The only thing I can think of is right click the navigation bar and select customize, then check "Use Small Icons".
It takes some tweaking to get it to look like Firefox 3.x:
1. Right click one of the toolbars to bring up the context menu and enable "Menu Bar" and disable "Tabs on Top"
2. Right click the navigation toolbar and select customize. Drag the home button to the left of the address bar and add the stop and reload buttons*
3. Download the Status-4-Ever extension to get a proper status bar
4. Set browser.urlbar.formatting.enabled to false in about:config (this disable url highlighting in the address bar)
5. Set browser.urlbar.trimURLs to false in about:config (this will show the protocol name in the address bar, i.e http:/// )
6. Download a classic theme (Optional)
*Note: The behaviour of the stop and reload buttons depends on the order in which you place them next to each other. If you place the stop button to the left of the reload button they will appear as two seperate buttons, but if you place the stop button to the right of the reload button it will appear as a single reload/stop button with combined functionality.
1. You can change the undo limit by going to Preferences > General > Editors > Text Editors and change "Undo History Size" from 200 to whatever you want.
2. You can revert a file by right clicking the file in the Package Explorer panel and then use Replace With -> Local History ...
3. ADB loses connection once in a while, shouldn't happen that often though... If you cant see log output in eclipse make sure you have the emulated device selected in the DDMS perspective.
4. Why do you need cygwin to do android development?
5. Different devices need different drivers with Windows... this is true for all devices on Windows, not just android phones. It would be nice if there was a generic android driver that worked with all phones, but I'm not sure how feasible that would be..
That was my main complaint with Oblivion and I'm glad to say in Skyrim the new leveling system is much better. Every time you level you choose to increase your Magicka, Health or Stamina by 10 points (there's no Dexterity or Strength stats anymore). You also gain 1 perk which you can place into one of the ~20 skill trees.
Step 1. Collect patent royalties from every Android device that Samsung sells
Step 2. Turn around and give that money back to Samsung to push Windows Phone 7
Step 3. ???
Step 4. Profit
I agree. I was really looking forward to the Nexus Prime and 4.0, but this is just embarrassing... it's so unpolished and amateurish. The color scheme, fonts, and icons on my stock Nexus S look 100x better.
I'm still looking forward to some of the new sdk features though.
What's the difference between me buying a game and playing it online for a year, versus me buying a game and playing it online for 6 months, then selling it and having a second person play it for another 6 months?
They both use the same theoretical amount of bandwidth, and Sony gets the same amount of money in either case aswell. This is just Sony being douchebags and attempting to squeeze extra money out of people.
That happens on my Nexus S aswell. That's why I switched to using a password lock.
If you use Adblock Plus there's a really nice filter to remove all social media crap, not just facebook. It's called Antisocial and you can find it here: http://adblockplus.org/en/subscriptions (it's at the very bottom in the Miscellaneous section).
Microsoft did the same thing with Shadowrun a few years ago...
Like I mentioned in another thread, David Gerard has an axe to grind with Google for some reason. My guess is he's just stirring up shit to drive page hits to NewsTechnica. Look at his submission history: http://slashdot.org/~David+Gerard/submissions
It's David Gerard, he's been spreading FUD for a while. Look at his last 3 submissions: http://slashdot.org/~David+Gerard/submissions
Pretty much everyone does it.
I bought a new video card recently, it came with a free copy of Dirt 3 so I decided to install it and check it out. After playing it for 5 minutes I decided I didn't like it so I uninstalled it. I later looked at my programs list and saw 3-5 things that were still installed, Windows Live Gaming, Blue Ripple Audio, etc.. I was pretty pissed to say the least. Also, around a month ago I decided to check out League of Legends since most of my friends play it. Mid install I see that it installed some "Pando Media Booster" crap, so I cancelled the install and removed all traces of it.
A few years ago I downloaded the demo of Unreal Tournament 3 and noticed that it installed some Aegia Physx software and drivers on my system. I emailed Mark Rein (the CEO of Epic Games) to complain. He promptly emailed me back and explained to me that Aegia Physx was required to play the game and that the game wouldn't function without it. I emailed him back again, letting him know that I had already uninstalled the Aegia drivers and the game still ran fine. Basically he was full of shit and just trying to push Aegia Physx on his customers (they probably had some financial arrangement). I also told him that he lost a loyal customer, having purchased UT2k3 and UT2k4, and that he wouldn't be getting any more of my money.
Is it too much to ask for software without the crap?
I bought a Google Nexus S a few months ago and I'm loving it. It's extremely fast, developer friendly, and the stock UI is very nice (I'm not a fan of the HTC or Motorola UIs).
1. Came with Android 2.3.3, got the 2.3.4 upgrade as soon as it was available. The only issue I have with 2.3.4 is the wifi/3g icons in the notification area grey out when they shouldn't (well known issue).
2. Has 16GB internal storage, but no sd card slot. 1GB is reserved for applications (I'm not sure why they put in that arbitrary limit when theres 16GB available). Still happy overall, I don't need an sd card and I prefer having the 16GB internal storage.
3. The Nexus S is about as open as you can get. It's extremely easy to root if you want that (I haven't bothered to since I'm happy with the stock firmware at the moment).
Hopefully Google opens up Motorola and we get to see more phones like the Nexus One/S.
I want to delete my facebook profile and switch to google+ fulltime. Unfortunately almost all of my friends and family still use facebook, though some of them have google+ accounts aswell. What exactly can I do to get them to switch over? No one wants to use a service that has no activity and no users. It's a chicken and egg problem.
For the time being I've gone back to using email almost exclusively. I never used 99% of the facebook features anyway, I disabled the wall, didnt post pictures, etc.. I basically just used facebook as messaging/email service (though it has the worst interface that I've ever seen for that purpose).
Other companies aren't going to drop Android when they're making insane amounts of cash off it. It's not like they can license and sell iOS devices, and WP7 has a tiny market, their only option is Android.
HTC was a no-name taiwanese handset maker until android came along. Now HTC is one of the top 4 handset makers in the world, virtually overnight. Samsung is doing extremely well too. They sold 19 million android handsets last quarter and they'll probably pass Apple later this year.
I doubt HTC and Samsung are worried about Google entering the fray. I say it's a good thing, more competition, cheaper/better phones, etc. Maybe Google can clean up and improve Motorola's horrible firmware while they're at it.
This seems extremely low to me, cars already do that today. When the U.S reaches 54.5 mpg in 2025 other countries will be on 75-100 mpg.
I agree. Though Microsoft basically did the same thing with Internet Explorer and got into a lot of hot water, so it's hard to say.
Last I checked Apple controls their platform pretty tightly aswell and forces you to use the iTunes store for everything. Why isn't Apple being investigated for not allowing competiting app stores (without jailbreaking). Why is Apple allowed to tie their services to their platform and Google isn't? Seems a bit ridiculous to me.
Google doesn't have a monopoly on smart phones, search, mail or any other service. There is a pretty healthy level of competition at the moment. There is nothing stopping vendors or customers from customizing android with non-google services. Again, I fail to see how google has a monopoly on anything.
Apple ties iphones with itunes, I fail to see why google can't do whatever they want with their own platform.