Well, more complicated than that. Their strategy around Symbian failed badly, their explorations into Linux tablets (with Maemo) had much promise but compromised by their Symbian focus and their decision not to adopt Android left them without an appropriately competitive flagship device.
So their strategy has been flawed in a number of areas, but it is the reason they've failed to compete, rather than their production pipeline (which was my real point).
£40 with no contract. It's a pretty shitty phone (unless you believe Asda's quote of "14 days" talk time) but it's an Android phone for forty quid.
To be fair, they offer a number of other shitty phones far cheaper - although "shitty" is relative; their £12.50 phone (non-contract) is feature superior to the top-of-the-range Nokia I bought in the year 2000.
Extra charges for everything, Security concerns out the wazoo.Tiny bitch ass screens not nearly enough for the computing expected from these devices. A few months to obsolescence( bigger, better,faster next week). Draconian contracts and Terms of Use.
You have my sympathy. Fortunately for me I've been able to get - a standalone self-contained device that has no further charges attached to it - which is sufficiently secure, in that that I have full control over the device (due to root access and the ability to choose which software I install and which capabilities it can access) - with a 1280x768 pixel screen, which coincidentally is the same resolution as the 15" laptop my employer expects me to work on - that will continue to work for several years, whether newer devices are released or not
I do pay for a mobile phone contract, but that's because it gives me the ability to speak to people remotely when I'm not at home or at work. It also provides me with Internet access with no further usage charges. I can also cancel that contract without penalty (and keep my device).
It makes me glad to have a not-so-smart phone and a handful of laptops and desktops for ACTUAL APPLICATIONS.
I find that I have to upgrade my laptop far more regularly than my phone. Meanwhile my smartphone provides multiple useful capabilities (implemented as ACTUAL APPLICATIONS) to me while I'm out of the house without me having to carry around an entire laptop.
Still, I can understand that some people may prefer to live in the 90s and not pay extra for a modern device. I'm not knocking that choice, merely highlighting that your input factors may not be valid.
That's not necessarily the case. They are after all price comparable with top-end Android smartphones, and not too far behind on features.
There is however significant evidence that they're exploiting their suppliers - not least through heavily anti-competitive practices such as demanding 30% of any revenue from their devices, even for other peoples' content IP.
You must be American. The rest of us don't worship the almighty dollar.
Frankly obscene profits are not an indicator of who is winning. It's an indicator of who is exploiting their supply chain and ripping off their customers.
If multiple companies are making reasonable returns on investment by selling Android devices then everybody's winning - particularly consumers who actually have a choice which includes buying capable technology at a price point that does gouge their wallets.
As for 'crushing Android', worldwide figures strongly suggest that the Android ecosystem is thriving. This hardly sounds like a crushing to me.
How is a high quality high resolution screen that's a joy to use "Not a user feature"?
Exactly how the fuck do you expect me to interact with my touchscreen device? Sure, I could try to talk to it, but it's going to take a long time to read back all of the returned content and video's going to be extremely tricky.
Not a user fucking feature my arse. Look, feel free to defend Apple but please, stop showing blind ignorance. Remember, he's dead, you can stop sucking his dick now.
Therefore, it is, in fact, illegal to forget the password, illegal to lose the password and illegal to have never known the password in the first place, to an encrypted volume in your possession.
Strictly speaking, you're not completely correct.
It's illegal to have never known the password in the first place, to a file the police believe to be encrypted, whether it is or not.
That's how fucking stupid the law is. You can go to prison for failing to provide the decryption key to/dev/random
I'd happily use this, maybe even pay for apps if they meet a need well enough.
But only if I can trust it. There has to be a general belief and continued lack of proof to the contrary that the apps can be trusted.
The Google controlled Market ironically lacks this element of trust - but Google have the track record of resolving any issues as soon as they spot them. So on balance, you tend to have a reasonable level of comfort, particularly if an app's been downloaded 5 million times.
However, I'm all for it. Lets get it up and running - after all, this is the very openness that drew me to Android ahead of its rivals.
Wtf? I downloaded 200 gigs of games when I bought this computer, and stream live football when a match I want to watch is on. I've been known to download or stream movies too.
What's that you say? I'm paying under $50/month, and I'm getting the bandwidth needed to use my Steam purchases, Sky TV and LoveFilm subscriptions?
No, I didn't need 50MB/s before I did all this legitimate streaming. That's why I only had 2MB on my first broadband connection, then 20, and only in the past year 50. It's why I'm not upgrading to 100MB/s even though it's available now, because 50 is meeting my needs.
still for most people the legal media services would be unused if they couldn't also fill the gaps with torrent feeds
True only to the extent that WoW and some open source software I use make use of bittorrent technology.
I don't have high bandwidth because it support illegitimate activities, I use legitimate services because I have enough bandwidth to make them usable. The ISPs gain from this and so do content creators. Is that so difficult?
Mainly because most of them are merely ignorant, badly educated, actively lied to from birth and generally just innocent.
It's the manipulative fuckers at the top, the child abusers (catch all term, covers priests, rabbis, vicars, mullahs and other bastards that corrupt children with their lies) and the political hierarchies within religions that are the problem.
No, but I've noticed the Catholic Church are worth a few bob. Made that through hard work did it? No imposition of laws, no theft of land or property, no brainwashing of the young to make them feel they owe the church something, no control of world governments?
Sure. Believe that and you'll probably be believing there's a god next.
How can atheism be true? There's nothing to prove. There's nothing to scrutinise. Michael Behe can admit his ignorance on the source of natural phenomena as much as he likes, that doesn't alter in the slightest whether an atheist lacks the belief that there is a god.
Shit, many atheists will also profess ignorance on the origin of various natural things. Not knowing is not the same as "the magical sky fairy did it".
Which part of "do not believe there is" are you struggling with? I do not "believe there is no", I merely "do not believe there is".
It's a subtle use of terms, but belief doesn't come into it, merely the absence of belief.
I also don't believe in fairies or alien abduction; are you going to pretend that my lack of belief in those things is actually a belief system in itself?
I have a lack of belief. I do not have belief. I am not believing. There is no belief in this house.
That's not a belief system, that an absence of belief system, no matter how metaphysically you misuse the language.
Get your head around this: Atheists don't have to start with "god does not exist". They merely reject the hypothesis "god does exist", often due to an abject lack of credible evidence and the ease with which people claiming that there is a god can be shown to be lying, ignorant, stupid, malicious or all of the above.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, more complicated than that. Their strategy around Symbian failed badly, their explorations into Linux tablets (with Maemo) had much promise but compromised by their Symbian focus and their decision not to adopt Android left them without an appropriately competitive flagship device.
So their strategy has been flawed in a number of areas, but it is the reason they've failed to compete, rather than their production pipeline (which was my real point).
I use it daily for several things. This "sluggish"ness you mention isn't something I've noticed.
You appear to be applying prejudice ahead of simple facts.
Indeed. If only the markets could compensate for this behaviour somehow, such as factoring anticipated dividend payments into the share price.
So, again, explain why they are failing? Why did they abandon Symbian?
Strategy and design choices, rather than their supply chain.
£40 with no contract. It's a pretty shitty phone (unless you believe Asda's quote of "14 days" talk time) but it's an Android phone for forty quid.
To be fair, they offer a number of other shitty phones far cheaper - although "shitty" is relative; their £12.50 phone (non-contract) is feature superior to the top-of-the-range Nokia I bought in the year 2000.
Extra charges for everything, Security concerns out the wazoo.Tiny bitch ass screens not nearly enough for the computing expected from these devices. A few months to obsolescence( bigger, better,faster next week). Draconian contracts and Terms of Use.
You have my sympathy. Fortunately for me I've been able to get
- a standalone self-contained device that has no further charges attached to it
- which is sufficiently secure, in that that I have full control over the device (due to root access and the ability to choose which software I install and which capabilities it can access)
- with a 1280x768 pixel screen, which coincidentally is the same resolution as the 15" laptop my employer expects me to work on
- that will continue to work for several years, whether newer devices are released or not
I do pay for a mobile phone contract, but that's because it gives me the ability to speak to people remotely when I'm not at home or at work. It also provides me with Internet access with no further usage charges. I can also cancel that contract without penalty (and keep my device).
It makes me glad to have a not-so-smart phone and a handful of laptops and desktops for ACTUAL APPLICATIONS.
I find that I have to upgrade my laptop far more regularly than my phone. Meanwhile my smartphone provides multiple useful capabilities (implemented as ACTUAL APPLICATIONS) to me while I'm out of the house without me having to carry around an entire laptop.
Still, I can understand that some people may prefer to live in the 90s and not pay extra for a modern device. I'm not knocking that choice, merely highlighting that your input factors may not be valid.
In reality Android ships more phones; slightly at that. Devices: Apple clearly wins.
Even before sales of Android enabled TVs, cars and tablets really start to take off:
http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/22/android-700000/
If Asus could sort out their production pipeline the iPad 2 wouldn't even be the highest selling tablet these days.
That's not necessarily the case. They are after all price comparable with top-end Android smartphones, and not too far behind on features.
There is however significant evidence that they're exploiting their suppliers - not least through heavily anti-competitive practices such as demanding 30% of any revenue from their devices, even for other peoples' content IP.
You must be American. The rest of us don't worship the almighty dollar.
Frankly obscene profits are not an indicator of who is winning. It's an indicator of who is exploiting their supply chain and ripping off their customers.
If multiple companies are making reasonable returns on investment by selling Android devices then everybody's winning - particularly consumers who actually have a choice which includes buying capable technology at a price point that does gouge their wallets.
As for 'crushing Android', worldwide figures strongly suggest that the Android ecosystem is thriving. This hardly sounds like a crushing to me.
How is a high quality high resolution screen that's a joy to use "Not a user feature"?
Exactly how the fuck do you expect me to interact with my touchscreen device? Sure, I could try to talk to it, but it's going to take a long time to read back all of the returned content and video's going to be extremely tricky.
Not a user fucking feature my arse. Look, feel free to defend Apple but please, stop showing blind ignorance. Remember, he's dead, you can stop sucking his dick now.
Therefore, it is, in fact, illegal to forget the password, illegal to lose the password and illegal to have never known the password in the first place, to an encrypted volume in your possession.
Strictly speaking, you're not completely correct.
It's illegal to have never known the password in the first place, to a file the police believe to be encrypted, whether it is or not.
That's how fucking stupid the law is. You can go to prison for failing to provide the decryption key to /dev/random
Not strictly. You can retain your privacy if you're willing to stay in jail forever instead.
Ouch, that is nasty. I installed generic ICS after unlocking so I'm out of the Samsung eco system now.
Hmm. Posting from my Samsung phone with an jnlocked bootloader..
Well, for a start, it's unlikely to require access to Facebook. That gives it a strong credibility boost from the outset.
I'd happily use this, maybe even pay for apps if they meet a need well enough.
But only if I can trust it. There has to be a general belief and continued lack of proof to the contrary that the apps can be trusted.
The Google controlled Market ironically lacks this element of trust - but Google have the track record of resolving any issues as soon as they spot them. So on balance, you tend to have a reasonable level of comfort, particularly if an app's been downloaded 5 million times.
However, I'm all for it. Lets get it up and running - after all, this is the very openness that drew me to Android ahead of its rivals.
There's a whole internet subculture based around just that.
Not just his nose, either..
You say that as though it were a good thing.
Me, I interpret it as a damning indictment of your legal system, and particularly its oppressive plea bargaining blackmail.
But I guess I could be wrong in this instance.
The fact is that censorship requires government force to accomplish.
No, it doesn't.
Censorship can easily be done with no government support, and indeed in action against the government.
Wtf? I downloaded 200 gigs of games when I bought this computer, and stream live football when a match I want to watch is on. I've been known to download or stream movies too.
What's that you say? I'm paying under $50/month, and I'm getting the bandwidth needed to use my Steam purchases, Sky TV and LoveFilm subscriptions?
No, I didn't need 50MB/s before I did all this legitimate streaming. That's why I only had 2MB on my first broadband connection, then 20, and only in the past year 50. It's why I'm not upgrading to 100MB/s even though it's available now, because 50 is meeting my needs.
still for most people the legal media services would be unused if they couldn't also fill the gaps with torrent feeds
True only to the extent that WoW and some open source software I use make use of bittorrent technology.
I don't have high bandwidth because it support illegitimate activities, I use legitimate services because I have enough bandwidth to make them usable. The ISPs gain from this and so do content creators. Is that so difficult?
Mainly because most of them are merely ignorant, badly educated, actively lied to from birth and generally just innocent.
It's the manipulative fuckers at the top, the child abusers (catch all term, covers priests, rabbis, vicars, mullahs and other bastards that corrupt children with their lies) and the political hierarchies within religions that are the problem.
No, but I've noticed the Catholic Church are worth a few bob. Made that through hard work did it? No imposition of laws, no theft of land or property, no brainwashing of the young to make them feel they owe the church something, no control of world governments?
Sure. Believe that and you'll probably be believing there's a god next.
How can atheism be true? There's nothing to prove. There's nothing to scrutinise. Michael Behe can admit his ignorance on the source of natural phenomena as much as he likes, that doesn't alter in the slightest whether an atheist lacks the belief that there is a god.
Shit, many atheists will also profess ignorance on the origin of various natural things. Not knowing is not the same as "the magical sky fairy did it".
I'm an atheist. I do not believe there is a god.
Which part of "do not believe there is" are you struggling with? I do not "believe there is no", I merely "do not believe there is".
It's a subtle use of terms, but belief doesn't come into it, merely the absence of belief.
I also don't believe in fairies or alien abduction; are you going to pretend that my lack of belief in those things is actually a belief system in itself?
Fuck your metaphysical word wrangling.
I do not believe in god.
I have a lack of belief. I do not have belief. I am not believing. There is no belief in this house.
That's not a belief system, that an absence of belief system, no matter how metaphysically you misuse the language.
Get your head around this: Atheists don't have to start with "god does not exist". They merely reject the hypothesis "god does exist", often due to an abject lack of credible evidence and the ease with which people claiming that there is a god can be shown to be lying, ignorant, stupid, malicious or all of the above.