The kids that I know of that buy stuff in iTunes mostly get their iTunes funds from gift cards purchased in stores. If this guy is trying to track iTunes sales by tracking credit card transactions done directly with iTunes, he's going to be missing a ton of business that is now driven through gift cards. Those credit card transactions will show for the retailer that sold the gift card, not for iTunes.
I'm actually OK with making it illegal to leave your keys in the car ignition because kids could get ahold of it too easily and hurt others. In the extreme, it's probably illegal to leave a loaded gun in your driveway for similar reasons.
But I don't see how wireless protection falls into this category. This sounds purely like they're just trying to make you lock the door to your network when it's your own business whether you want to share or not.
Of course, if it's against the law or contract to share your wireless connection with your neighbors (something that is true with some DSL contracts), then I can see how an apartment complex might want to try to keep their tenant community from stealing shared service and this whole thing might actually make some sense.
This seems silly. If you want to protect your own private property or not, that's your own business. They don't require you to lock your apartment door when you leave. They don't require you to lock your car door when you park in your parking space. How is this any different?
I beg to differ that lots of people are switching from Palm to Blackberry. In fact, Palm Treo sales are growing much much faster than Blackberry sales and Palm predicts they will surpass Blackberry by the end of this year in incremental new sales.
The Treo with high quality software is arguably easier and better than the Blackberry, even for one-handed operation. The Treo has a 5-way control (not a joystick) in the center of the device and with good software can be easier to use one-handed than the Blackberry. The Blackberry has scroll up, scroll down, click and back. That's it for one-handed use on the Blackberry. If you want to go left or right, you have to hold down a shift key while you scroll the wheel (hardly a one-handed operation). The Treo, on the other hand, has left, right, up, down and click and four other buttons all within one handed reach giving you full one-handed navigation. While nobody should be recommending extended use of a smartphone while driving, I'll happily pit a Treo with good software against a Blackberry with its software for one-handed use. At best, they'll be even. At worst, the Treo will be able to perform a number of additional one-handed operations that the Blackberry will require the second hand for.
For more advanced uses, try opening a browser page on a Blackberry and navigate among the links on the page. A browser page, even on a smartphone screen is fundamentally a two-dimensional object. Intuitive navigation requires left/right and up/down movement. Yet, the blackberry only has up/down controls built-in. The Treo, on the other hand, has full left/right and up/down controls built-in for one-handed use. And further, if you really want the most intuitive (though not one-handed use), you can just pull out the stylus and tap on the link you want in your page. That's the way browser pages were meant to be used.
Email and browser are just two applications. The Treo's model is designed to support full two-dimensional navigation, the Blackberry is not. As other applications become popular (other business applications or entertainment), the Treo is just that much more flexible and adaptable to the needs of those applications. The Blackberry can do one thing pretty well, but we're starting to see the cracks in it's single purpose design. Remember Wang? The best word processor in the world. Dedicated to doing great word processing. But it was soon surpassed by the more flexible, general purpose and more open PC platform and its range of word processing choices and other applications. Will the same thing happen to the Blackberry? You can draw you own conclusions, but the parallels are surprising.
For companies with Microsoft Exchange or IBM Domino as their mail system, Good Technology provides a product called GoodLink that offers full push email for the Treo and some would argue with an even better user experience than Blackberry. Good's product is #2 in the enterprise market behind Blackberry and is installed and being used in more than half of the Fortune 50. Good does not offer a consumer or individually purchasable product so they are not as well known as some of the consumer offerings, but they've clearly established themselves in the enterprise. Further a significant portion of Treo's business in the enterprise is running GoodLink and a significant portion of Good's overall business is on the Treo as it has been the most successful smartphone to date here in the U.S..
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The kids that I know of that buy stuff in iTunes mostly get their iTunes funds from gift cards purchased in stores. If this guy is trying to track iTunes sales by tracking credit card transactions done directly with iTunes, he's going to be missing a ton of business that is now driven through gift cards. Those credit card transactions will show for the retailer that sold the gift card, not for iTunes.
I'm actually OK with making it illegal to leave your keys in the car ignition because kids could get ahold of it too easily and hurt others. In the extreme, it's probably illegal to leave a loaded gun in your driveway for similar reasons. But I don't see how wireless protection falls into this category. This sounds purely like they're just trying to make you lock the door to your network when it's your own business whether you want to share or not. Of course, if it's against the law or contract to share your wireless connection with your neighbors (something that is true with some DSL contracts), then I can see how an apartment complex might want to try to keep their tenant community from stealing shared service and this whole thing might actually make some sense.
This seems silly. If you want to protect your own private property or not, that's your own business. They don't require you to lock your apartment door when you leave. They don't require you to lock your car door when you park in your parking space. How is this any different?
I beg to differ that lots of people are switching from Palm to Blackberry. In fact, Palm Treo sales are growing much much faster than Blackberry sales and Palm predicts they will surpass Blackberry by the end of this year in incremental new sales. The Treo with high quality software is arguably easier and better than the Blackberry, even for one-handed operation. The Treo has a 5-way control (not a joystick) in the center of the device and with good software can be easier to use one-handed than the Blackberry. The Blackberry has scroll up, scroll down, click and back. That's it for one-handed use on the Blackberry. If you want to go left or right, you have to hold down a shift key while you scroll the wheel (hardly a one-handed operation). The Treo, on the other hand, has left, right, up, down and click and four other buttons all within one handed reach giving you full one-handed navigation. While nobody should be recommending extended use of a smartphone while driving, I'll happily pit a Treo with good software against a Blackberry with its software for one-handed use. At best, they'll be even. At worst, the Treo will be able to perform a number of additional one-handed operations that the Blackberry will require the second hand for. For more advanced uses, try opening a browser page on a Blackberry and navigate among the links on the page. A browser page, even on a smartphone screen is fundamentally a two-dimensional object. Intuitive navigation requires left/right and up/down movement. Yet, the blackberry only has up/down controls built-in. The Treo, on the other hand, has full left/right and up/down controls built-in for one-handed use. And further, if you really want the most intuitive (though not one-handed use), you can just pull out the stylus and tap on the link you want in your page. That's the way browser pages were meant to be used. Email and browser are just two applications. The Treo's model is designed to support full two-dimensional navigation, the Blackberry is not. As other applications become popular (other business applications or entertainment), the Treo is just that much more flexible and adaptable to the needs of those applications. The Blackberry can do one thing pretty well, but we're starting to see the cracks in it's single purpose design. Remember Wang? The best word processor in the world. Dedicated to doing great word processing. But it was soon surpassed by the more flexible, general purpose and more open PC platform and its range of word processing choices and other applications. Will the same thing happen to the Blackberry? You can draw you own conclusions, but the parallels are surprising.
For companies with Microsoft Exchange or IBM Domino as their mail system, Good Technology provides a product called GoodLink that offers full push email for the Treo and some would argue with an even better user experience than Blackberry. Good's product is #2 in the enterprise market behind Blackberry and is installed and being used in more than half of the Fortune 50. Good does not offer a consumer or individually purchasable product so they are not as well known as some of the consumer offerings, but they've clearly established themselves in the enterprise. Further a significant portion of Treo's business in the enterprise is running GoodLink and a significant portion of Good's overall business is on the Treo as it has been the most successful smartphone to date here in the U.S..