It's not like Microsoft said, "hey, we invented an easy way to mount ISO's. Take THAT Linux! wait, you already have that? Oh well, our way is superior!"
It's more like Microsoft said, "Hey, we made ISO's easy to mount."
The rest of the crap comes from those who make a living trying to instigate fights between users in both camps.
I'll bet this was in the roadmap for some time, and helps to explain why they do not offer a native SDK currently.
I think this is great for their phone platform as the Windows 8 kernel is likely to be far more robust in the areas of thread scheduling and memory management. Given that Windows 8 demonstrably can execute even in 128MB RAM (http://windows8beta.com/2011/10/windows-8-runs-on-64mb-and-128-mb-ram), the resource impact probably isn't an issue.
Let's ignore the fact that Microsoft wrote the specs for the phone as well as the operating system
As opposed to Apple, who not only writes the specs, but makes the phone.
... let's ignore that the phone is locked up tighter than a 14 year old Mormon virgin
Like Apple? These two points are irrelevant to sales success, and Apple proves it. Whether Microsoft has executed adequately on finer points is up for argument, but you didn't elaborate on any.
"marginal"? "brick"? So you want to lure people who actually own one into an argument while gaining bonus points from anti-MS readers, but really the choice of words adds nothing to your argument.
This just isn't accurate. It's not insanely buggy nor flaky, and so I'd like to know what your friend was seeing. I've switched from iOS to WinPhone 7.5 with an HTC Titan about 2 months ago, and I've found a couple of bugs: 1. The disappearing keyboard bug. This is sporadic, and easily worked around (by just refocusing the address bar), and is slated to be fixed soon. 2. Some web pages don't render quite as well as iOS Safari and Android web browsers. But this is pretty rare. 3. Music Hub needs some navigation work, certainly.
Aside from these issues, I've found it to be rather bug free, quite fast, and usable. I wouldn't at all characterize it as "insanely buggy" or "flaky" and I recommend it highly. Yeah, go ahead and accuse me of being paid my MS and what not. This is purely my point of view.
Looking at this from the "what industry can we make $$$ from" lens is the wrong viewpoint. Yes, the USA is pretty good at software. We are still pretty good at making cars, too. But really it comes down to our ability to innovate and create anything at all. Innovation happens at all levels. It can optimize something, giving us that 1% edge that makes all the difference, or can create a completely new industry. That's why deep capital investment in startups and academic institutions is so fundamental to our future success. We can't predict how our car, software, manufacture, agriculture, and other industries will fare in the next 50 years, but we can maximize our chances of success by being first and best at new things.
Maybe US software will collapse. Maybe Microsoft and Google will get bought by some Chinese company one day at firesale prices. If so, we need to ensure that we have new things to replace and surpass US software rather than instituting things that superficially protect it.
On the other hand, they might be physically 100 times smaller on a planet with less gravity, be far more durable to the effects of radiation, and have a more efficient means of sustenance. It's possible they don't have to haul as much into space to stay alive. All that would add up to their trip to space being actually far *easier* than ours.
Those verticals had tablet solutions for many years before the iPad. Doesn't change the fact that that form factor isn't optimal for what the other 95% of people who work with data do. The laptop and desktop are, and so they dominate. The only reason tablets are getting attention is that certain companies made them good for playing videos and games, and browsing. It doesn't make it good for work.
Ketchup on my burger. Really, is this needed?? I'm doing just fine without it. Garage door opener. Really, is this needed?? I just yell out the car window and my wife opens the garage door. Slashdot. Really, is this needed?? I just open a text editor and rant about Microsoft, then close without saving.
The saddest thing is when the staff who fails to produce a decent bug report is QA. I have rarely seen QA actually have the ability to capture data and think critically about how to get to a resolution. Therefore, I have very little expectation that anyone else would, either. Just ignore the reports until another avenue for fixing it reveals itself. Your responsibility to stay sane and respectful overrides the responsibility to improve software quality.
I think their initial intention was to throw WebOS and the TouchPad overboard, but consider that tablets are already racing to the bottom. HP's firesale pricing happens to already be there, and maybe a better strategy is to become a strong #2 in the market so they can upsell you to a more normally-priced $149 tablet next year. That would make more sense that just pulling the cord.
It's like a high stakes poker game with a full table. Eventually, players bust out because they bet too much on a losing hand. Dell just doesn't have quite the same mix of top-notch industrial design and capable hardware that the top players have. Neither did HP, and so the weak are weeded out. Windows 8 might convince them to buy back in, but really this is Apple, Samsung, and HTC's game.
but they aren't dumb enough not to completely ignore market forces. Android phones with screen sizes greater than 4" have been selling like crazy. There are rumors that the HTC Titan (a Windows Phone) with a massive 4.7" display, amazingly enough, have been selling far better than expected. The reviewers don't seem to mind - they seem to gloss over or overlook the large screen size impact on form factor. The consumers don't seem to mind - they seem to eat it up. I'm sure this had some small factor in the decision-making (if TFA is actually true).
Will they increase the resolution? Probably not - small, incremental jumps in resolution just tend to tick off developers. So, why increase the screen size at all? It feels like they are following their marketing noses on this one.
Three recent examplea to the contrary come to mind. Perry fumbled with the third department he'd shut down, correct? I just want to make sure we are talking about the same thing before I say yes or no. Herman Cain had a memory lapse on Libya, and definitely didn't remember more than we thought. The third case, no that was a different one. Sorry, got all this stuff twirling in my head. What was TFA about again?
A ton of games use Unity, which basically makes your game run on mono. Microsoft's own WP7 can't run Unity, and that's one of the major complaints of indie game developers on that platform. It'd be in Microsoft's best interests for its mobile platform to apply the screws to Unity as well, but they haven't done so. Neither have they done so with any of the apps that use MonoDroid, MonoTouch, or MonoMac. I just don't see the evidence that they'd do that. Maybe they would, but I wouldn't bet on it if I had to judge by their (lack of) legal actions surrounding.NET.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not like Microsoft said, "hey, we invented an easy way to mount ISO's. Take THAT Linux! wait, you already have that? Oh well, our way is superior!"
It's more like Microsoft said, "Hey, we made ISO's easy to mount."
The rest of the crap comes from those who make a living trying to instigate fights between users in both camps.
Drunk twittering is a life ruiner.
I tried to get my team to do daily stand up meetings, but everyone quickly ran out of fresh material and no one was funny anymore.
The funniest thing I've heard recently is that I'm doing it wrong. That was a kick.
I'll bet this was in the roadmap for some time, and helps to explain why they do not offer a native SDK currently.
I think this is great for their phone platform as the Windows 8 kernel is likely to be far more robust in the areas of thread scheduling and memory management. Given that Windows 8 demonstrably can execute even in 128MB RAM (http://windows8beta.com/2011/10/windows-8-runs-on-64mb-and-128-mb-ram), the resource impact probably isn't an issue.
Is it that bad? Isn't the argument that the things we find in our immediate neighborhood are more likely to be commonplace than rare?
Let's ignore the fact that Microsoft wrote the specs for the phone as well as the operating system
As opposed to Apple, who not only writes the specs, but makes the phone.
... let's ignore that the phone is locked up tighter than a 14 year old Mormon virgin
Like Apple? These two points are irrelevant to sales success, and Apple proves it. Whether Microsoft has executed adequately on finer points is up for argument, but you didn't elaborate on any.
"marginal"? "brick"? So you want to lure people who actually own one into an argument while gaining bonus points from anti-MS readers, but really the choice of words adds nothing to your argument.
This just isn't accurate. It's not insanely buggy nor flaky, and so I'd like to know what your friend was seeing. I've switched from iOS to WinPhone 7.5 with an HTC Titan about 2 months ago, and I've found a couple of bugs:
1. The disappearing keyboard bug. This is sporadic, and easily worked around (by just refocusing the address bar), and is slated to be fixed soon.
2. Some web pages don't render quite as well as iOS Safari and Android web browsers. But this is pretty rare.
3. Music Hub needs some navigation work, certainly.
Aside from these issues, I've found it to be rather bug free, quite fast, and usable. I wouldn't at all characterize it as "insanely buggy" or "flaky" and I recommend it highly. Yeah, go ahead and accuse me of being paid my MS and what not. This is purely my point of view.
Looking at this from the "what industry can we make $$$ from" lens is the wrong viewpoint. Yes, the USA is pretty good at software. We are still pretty good at making cars, too. But really it comes down to our ability to innovate and create anything at all. Innovation happens at all levels. It can optimize something, giving us that 1% edge that makes all the difference, or can create a completely new industry. That's why deep capital investment in startups and academic institutions is so fundamental to our future success. We can't predict how our car, software, manufacture, agriculture, and other industries will fare in the next 50 years, but we can maximize our chances of success by being first and best at new things.
Maybe US software will collapse. Maybe Microsoft and Google will get bought by some Chinese company one day at firesale prices. If so, we need to ensure that we have new things to replace and surpass US software rather than instituting things that superficially protect it.
Absolutely, wasn't saying otherwise.
Corporations don't work for the people - they work for the bottom line. Sometimes The Right Thing and More Profit are actually aligned.
Fuck you
Take some time off and reflect. Slashdot isn't going to provide you with any wisdom for something that is a function of you and your feelings.
The reason why most developers think of QA that way is because most QA is that way.
On the other hand, they might be physically 100 times smaller on a planet with less gravity, be far more durable to the effects of radiation, and have a more efficient means of sustenance. It's possible they don't have to haul as much into space to stay alive. All that would add up to their trip to space being actually far *easier* than ours.
Those verticals had tablet solutions for many years before the iPad. Doesn't change the fact that that form factor isn't optimal for what the other 95% of people who work with data do. The laptop and desktop are, and so they dominate. The only reason tablets are getting attention is that certain companies made them good for playing videos and games, and browsing. It doesn't make it good for work.
Home: laptop
Beach: nothing. I am at the beach. maybe my phone.
Train: sitting down, small, lightweight notebook. Standing up, phone.
.
Ketchup on my burger. Really, is this needed?? I'm doing just fine without it.
Garage door opener. Really, is this needed?? I just yell out the car window and my wife opens the garage door.
Slashdot. Really, is this needed?? I just open a text editor and rant about Microsoft, then close without saving.
The saddest thing is when the staff who fails to produce a decent bug report is QA. I have rarely seen QA actually have the ability to capture data and think critically about how to get to a resolution. Therefore, I have very little expectation that anyone else would, either. Just ignore the reports until another avenue for fixing it reveals itself. Your responsibility to stay sane and respectful overrides the responsibility to improve software quality.
I think their initial intention was to throw WebOS and the TouchPad overboard, but consider that tablets are already racing to the bottom. HP's firesale pricing happens to already be there, and maybe a better strategy is to become a strong #2 in the market so they can upsell you to a more normally-priced $149 tablet next year. That would make more sense that just pulling the cord.
It's like a high stakes poker game with a full table. Eventually, players bust out because they bet too much on a losing hand. Dell just doesn't have quite the same mix of top-notch industrial design and capable hardware that the top players have. Neither did HP, and so the weak are weeded out. Windows 8 might convince them to buy back in, but really this is Apple, Samsung, and HTC's game.
Can it generate pi? Wow.
but they aren't dumb enough not to completely ignore market forces. Android phones with screen sizes greater than 4" have been selling like crazy. There are rumors that the HTC Titan (a Windows Phone) with a massive 4.7" display, amazingly enough, have been selling far better than expected. The reviewers don't seem to mind - they seem to gloss over or overlook the large screen size impact on form factor. The consumers don't seem to mind - they seem to eat it up. I'm sure this had some small factor in the decision-making (if TFA is actually true).
Will they increase the resolution? Probably not - small, incremental jumps in resolution just tend to tick off developers. So, why increase the screen size at all? It feels like they are following their marketing noses on this one.
Three recent examplea to the contrary come to mind. Perry fumbled with the third department he'd shut down, correct? I just want to make sure we are talking about the same thing before I say yes or no. Herman Cain had a memory lapse on Libya, and definitely didn't remember more than we thought. The third case, no that was a different one. Sorry, got all this stuff twirling in my head. What was TFA about again?
This whole thing helps keep me occupied.
A ton of games use Unity, which basically makes your game run on mono. Microsoft's own WP7 can't run Unity, and that's one of the major complaints of indie game developers on that platform. It'd be in Microsoft's best interests for its mobile platform to apply the screws to Unity as well, but they haven't done so. Neither have they done so with any of the apps that use MonoDroid, MonoTouch, or MonoMac. I just don't see the evidence that they'd do that. Maybe they would, but I wouldn't bet on it if I had to judge by their (lack of) legal actions surrounding .NET.