I mean, come on, seriously. ANY time you;re doing something with an Apple device that's against the EULA or the provider's terms, Apple ALLWAYS turns off that function in the next release.
Further, you were TOLD WEEKS AGO that 3.1 broke the provider file hack and that only jailbroken devices and phones runnin 3.0.1 and older would be able to maintain tethering.
The hackers will win out and fix it soon enough, that is if AT&T doesn't start enabling it now anyway as they're doing with MMS.
Plus, adding tethering to an iPhone is $25 more per month, not $60 like it is on the crackberry or the Pre.
My wife's Verizon phone gets e-mail just fine, without paying for the data plan, and apparently every verizon phone with a color screen thats web enabled can do the same. My previos Sprint phone (back in 2002) had free e-mail as well, and my Cingular camera phone also got e-mail.
My parents have el-cheapo phones on a local carier network that don't even have cameras, I can can e-mail them photos...
Sure, not EVERY device can do it, and not on every plan, but the vast majority of phones on the market can send/receive e-mail. not all may be able to view the pic, but honestly, how often is it CRUCIAL someone see a pic I just took, or honestly, is simply letting them know there's one in their e-mail to view later good enough...
10% of the browser share was "more than half Windows" which means 4% or so of the total share was Safari on Macs (since the 0.88 percent of mobile safari also needs to be excluded).
That would lead me to believe that with 11% market penetration, and 4% browser penetration, safari use on Macs is actually less than 50%.
You blame AT&T as if they're the only provider of the iPhone worldwide, and as if they're the only ISP that has enforced provisions on Apple.
I still don't understand why MMS is even a point. Every single phone on the market can send and receive e-mail including media files for free... Tethering is a simple hack to implement, and even when they'll support it natively it will be $35 a month cheaper than anyone else's tethering option.
Apple has forced SIGNIFICANT changes top the phone networks. They're breaking their cost models, forcing architectural changes, and more.
Could they have released a device with 100% of what people want from day 1? No. The proviuders (originally Cingular) would not have touched it. Heck, Verizon turned it down as it was!. Remeber, those assholes have pertnerships with RIM, Microsoft, Palm, Nokia, and others. If they allowed Apple to come up with something that bypassed all that secondary revenue, and truly competed on uneven ground with features to blow the competition away, AT&T (and the others) would have had a real hard time getting anyone else to sell them devices for the non-iPhone crowd.
Also, slowly releasing features forces AT&T to stay in line. They approved the initial device, and now that they have 40 mjillion subscribers, when Apple updates the phone OS to support new stuff, it practically forces AT&T to comply, especailyl when other devices support the features on that network already. Any failure on AT&T's part, and Apple blows their contract away, and thos 40 million people might get a free pass from the FCC to dump their contracts and move to a friendlier subscriber. (or by FCC decree, get some free serfices, discounts, or potentially even refunds).
Apple has done more for the cell phone industry in this country than any other provider of a device. Why? there's no revenue sharing in their contract outside of the device sale itself. They could give two shits about AT&T's ability to nickle and dime us, nor any other phone company, and so they push the limits of what the network can do.
That AT&T contract WILL expire soon. Do NOT expect AT&T to get an exclusive extension. Then, instyantly, AT&T will drop prices, offer competing features, and be forced to finally compete (if the FCC and supreme court don;t make that happen sooner).
$59 personal plan + $30 data plan + $10 text plan = $99. (ok, so it's not unlimited text, but if you;'re blowing 1500+ texts a month on top of e-mail and chat, fuck you, you're $10 more).
Take this plan, on October 20th add to it a-list and asd one of your 5 numbers use your Google Voice number. Thus free, unlimited calling...
Oh, yea, the iPhone "unlimited" is in fact unlimited (except the limits placed on a few included apple apps like the store). Sprint caps you at 5GB (300MB off-network).
Further, AT&T will be charging an addtional $25 for tethering ($55 total), not $40 more as Sprint charges to add tethering to an everything plan. so if tethering is in your future, the AT&T plan is cheaper...
Even if you don;t have access to google voice, if you have an AT&T line at home, all calls between the iPhone and ANY AT&T customer (not just mobiles) are already free. I don't have GV yet, but I only have a 900 minute plan, and spend over 1600 minutes a month average (nearly 2500 occasionally). My high month thus far has been 620 in-plan minutes and my average is about 400... Also, I don't have a text/MMS plan, I use e-mail for free!
btw: AT&T will NOT let you turn off texting entirely on your device, but they WILL let you LIMIT/block incoming texts (though not calls, which is wierd). Their text blocking system supports relational strings, and dozens of options. I have mine set to only accept calls from a single area code, from residential numbers only. That area code is in mid Alaska. I've gotten 3 texts in a year:)
Sure, but then you'll be on Sprint's network, which doesn't work indoors in any of the 3 cities I go to regulary, and has virtually no reception at all in the country (even on major interstate passages).
Also, you're "unlimited" plan has a limit. 5GB on-network, 300MB off-network.
Since I can use a $59 basic plan (plus $30 for data), short of tecting (another $10 for 1500 texts). That's $90-100 for full unlimited calls (care of Google Voice and a-list) and full unlimited data (though the iPhone app store has file size limits, the rest of the net does not).
This makes my iPhone plan the SAME PRICE as your Sprint plan. Also, since I have an AT&T landline, i can not only call all AT&T mobiles for free, but also all land lines, and I don;t burn minutes from incoming or outgoing calls from any AT&T subscriber, or anyone on my a-list, or anyone who calls me via my google voice number.
Even before a-list and google voice, I have enjoyed about 1600 minutes a month average using the 450 a month plan without once exceeding my minutes (most people who call me are AT&T subscribers).
As for your homebrew community, your SDK is bareley available, there's no good marketplace established, and the few good apps that are available have comperable or better apps on the iPhone for a fraction of the price. Yes there are exceptions, but you buy 100 apps and I'll buy 100 apps and we'll see who has the lower total (if you can fine 100 unique apps for your Pre).
Also, with the money Palm blew, and their expected 1+M phones sold on launch week coming in more like 150,000, (and them predicting barely 1.5 million in 12 months to apples 11.6 million in the same time period) and on top a spiraling cost model (advertising, advertising, advertising, to try to pump demand, which since most agree the hardware feels cheap and the keyboard sucks, isn't getting them too far), there's a good chance Palm is going to be bankrupt in a couple of years tops and all those apps you have bought will be worthless as you migrate to Android (since you're obviously a hater and would never considder the Apple device even if it was both cheaper and better on all counts).
This is all assuming you;re OK with the on again/off again iTunes support which since they did not feel obligated to write their own app is basically the only (easy) way to get data in and out of your phone (it can be done, but will 90% of the general public care to figure, out how?). And if Apple sues them and adds to their mounting costs (or prevents the phone being sold and advertised with the app, which is far more likely), then they'll have REAL issues.
All this on top of what's essentiually a beta OS rushed to market that make NO guarantees of backward compatability as they move forward...
Come talk to me in 2 years when they've got version 3.0 of Palm's Pre OS on the market, an actual community (have yet to see it thus far), and some hardware I can drop without gasping, and maybe I'll reconsidder.
btw: I'm not a Mac Fanboi, I do not currently own a Mac, and I bought an iPhone only after planning on buying a Blackberry or Windows mobile and discovering it was actually cheaper over 2 years to buy an iPhoine (not including app purchases, which are far cheaper on the Apple device). I'm simply pointing out 1) your statements are wrong as are your numbers, 2) you're putting faith in an unproven device being punted by a dwindling firm, and 3) tethering IS available (to anyone who's smart enough to know to not upgrade a jailbroken or hacked device until they re-patch the jailbreak, which is NOt rocket science to learn), and won;t require a hack in 2 more weeks.
Oh, btw: Sprint terms of service: tethering is NOT supported under the everything plan. They CAN backbill you, plus penalties, if they discover you are tethering without an approved plan (which is REAL easy, mobile phones don't hit windowsupdate.com, nor adobe.com's flash updater, nor McAfee, nor any of a dozen other sites your PC will hit as soon as it ha
It would be interesting to see the site list they used to come up with this. My guess, a large number of sites used Silverlight, and defaulted to Flash if it was not IE being used to access it. I'd also like to see how each page was displayed to ensure that IE didn't cut corners.
But really, is this even relevent? you spend more battery lookingat the page then in rendering it, and a 7 minute difference in battery (in terms of hours) is not enough to force me to suffer through IE's querks.
I can't find any data on Firefox and Opera use on Macs, but I can say Safari use on Mac is not exactly a major monopoly as IE is in Windows.
I can confirm that Safari is 10% of the browser share as of July 2009 (and rising). This is based on browsing data, not on number of downloaded copies, so this is pretty accurately the percentage of people USING safari. The iPhone is about 0.88 of that total, so not a significant contributor.
More than half of the internet use came from Windows systems.
I've been using Safari on my PC since 4.0 beta. The searchable internet history was really what did it for me. Never again do I forget how to get to a site I've recently been at...
It's fast, I love the launch pad (though stolen from Opera), it looks good, notifying me of updates to my favorite sites saves time, and since I primarily do research not socialize, I don't come across so many sites that not having a fully integrated ad blocker is an issue at all.
Firefox is slow, I can load 4 tabs in Safari before IE even lets me click in the address field. I use Opera as a fallback if something doesn't display in Safari properly (some web forms have issues), but unfortunately, I have to revert to IE more than anything as many of the sites I'm forced to visit for work pursposes still either use proprietary controlls or worse, are coded to only display in IE.
A cross-over solution was needed. Keep the functionality. If you created the doc in an app, you shouold expect it to open in that app if you still have it insdtalled. Same if someone sends you a word doc, you'd expect word to open automatically if you have it installed. However, we needed a solution for not-installed or default appications as well. If someone sent me an XLS document, but I don;t have office installed, i got an error, not a set of options... Users need it both ways.
Let me set a defualt. Let me have an alternate option (say, use a 2 finger double click to open that instead opens using the prefered app instead of my default selection. Now if I open the app in my default, ind it translated poorly, i simply close it, then 2 finger double click to reopen in the originating app.
Go a step further, publish the universal list of type/creator strings, and through an online resource, provide me a list of apps available online that can open the offending file if I do not have a compatible reader/editor.
For files that "belong to" and are not "created by" a program (associated installed binaries, graphics files, and program subcompoenets), the creator should be encoded so i allways know what app put those files on my system.
That might sound simple enough when refering to a doc file, or a compressed package. However, if my default document editor os OO, but someone sends me a file from office 2007 containing macros, OO is going to have issues with that. I'd like to know not only is it a.doc, but also that its a Word 2007.doc file, so if it doesn't open in OO, or looks odd when it does, I can quickly identify the actual application used to make it and try opening it that app (if I have it or a compatible reader) instead.
This gets even more important when you look at files not typically opened by an end user as well. I occasionally search my system for folders containing files I can't itentify. Often uninstalling a program leaves crap behind, and if I find an unidentifiable folder, all the binaries in it should give me a clue as to the program they were associated with. I don;t want to guess...
Also, taking the type and creator away limits my ability to mess around with automator. it was yet another data point i could scan for without having to open the file first.
i agree Apple needed a method for giving the user control of how a program was opened, but taking away these options was not the best way.
It's a huge problem when you have 14K+ machines in an enterprise network, with over 200 servers in DMZs that can be compromised in some way, and an outdated mail filtering service and lagging AV/Malware security deployment.
We spend $70-100M a year upgrading and maintaining our IT infrastructure, and we stay a few years ehind the bleeding edge. We're a tight shop, multiple security tiers, and highly hardened systems. Still, we get numerous virus infections reported daily and constantly battle keeping the network secure.
Our data is very well protected, behind multiple tiers of firewalls and alternating operating platforms (there's never an "all windows" path, even across multiple servers, from a potential infection point to a data resource, making a very secure system overall), but that doesn't help us from having critial systems, or lots of workstations co down, causing disruption in the office. We use in-line and out-of-band netowkr monitoring technology, and can quickly identify a system that's gone rogue, but it's still a problem, and if one can whack other systems remotely, without having to infect them, through comonly open internal ports and protocols, that's another reason to deploy more non-windows systems...
Yup, I can confirm. i interviewed for a programming position at Boing on this project (DES) effort in 1997. There's also been lots of online material describing this chemical laser project over the years...
Your ISP's network does not span the continent of the USA, it spanns small regional areas, interconnected by larger backbone pipes.
Rolling services out to US communities, especially suburban ares and developed HOA based communities, costs no more here than in other countries (aside from union labor influences and some red tape). Yes, there are ares of this country that are not easily served in highly rural areas, but WiMax should be deployed there, not hardlines, but very few of those areas are served, and most of them by DSL which runs over the copper lines every one of those houses is ALREADY equipped with.
Rolling cbl tv out to rural areas: expensive. Rolling Telco services to rural areas: existing service, just add a few DSLAMs... Cross balance with dense populated city areas balances the equasion easily.
Ok, btw: I'm in a suburb of a major city on the southeast coast. I poay fracking $44.95 a month for 6dn/384up DSL. (modem diagnostics say it;s 8dn/512 up, but bill says lower). I run a bandwidth test 24x7 logged every 15 minutes across 3 East coast services for measurement. the BEST speed I have ever acquired is 4.1dn/312up. I average about 2.2dn/210up, about a 1/3rd of what i pay for, and about 50% if that vbetter than what i used to get for $14.99... on top of that, ping rates are all over the chart, and VoIP is choppy... And this is AT&T's service. I regularly have tests report back at under 1dn/50up.
...and my point remains, how are the others different?
and really, how much of this "shitty firmware" is actually forced by maintaining archaic backward compatibility to protocols that should have been killed 2 decades ago? (much more of a "IDE/SATA" sucks, than firmware sucks...)
It should also be noted, the offers they compared it to included storage virtualization, HBA multipathing, and is based on PRESENTED storage, not physical storage.
For a Tier 1 array, RAID 10 is typically standard, if not a high performance RAID -6, built on FC disks not SAS/SATA, with a LARGE cache (256MB or more for even a small array, GB on larger systems). Then there's disk journaling space for rollback writes and comitted write caching. To present 100TB of partitioned disk can take 250TB or more of physical disks underneath, and that's without getting into replication to a secondary SAN (which is billed differently from the primary chassis).
Comparing a single Tier 1 SAN chassis, fully configured and ready to go from EMC, with full support and onsite configuration, to a simple DASD configuration without even accounting for RAID parity drives let alone clustering, virtualzation, and avaialbility software is a faulty comparrison. Also, NO ONE pays retail for EMC hardware (discounts of 35% are NORMAL, up to 50% or more has been our experience).
Here's what I'd like to see: BackBlaze's cost for a FULLY REDUNDANT, Tier 1, RAID 10 system, with spare drives, split modularly across more than 1 datacenter in the same building and further replicated in real time (geoclustering) to an offsite locartion (not including WAN costs). All the software components for this included and fully configured, including a routine support cycle for software upgrades. Licensing for hundreds of connected servers, and all the SAN and 10G connectivity to the network. Then, compare that to a Symmetrix solution with the same capabilities.
I understand Backblaze, given their internal code base, can do this cheaper than the could have bought a real system, but can the SELL that solution on a price that is half or less than EMC's QUOTED (not MSRP) competitive price? Then I'd be impressed.
"Redundancy can be had for another $117,000."...plus the inter SAN connectivity...plus the SAN Fabric aware write plitting hardware and licensing...plus the redundancy aware server connected to that SAN fabric...plus the multipath HBA licensing for the servers...plus multiple redundant HBAs per server and twice as many SAN fabric switches...plus journaling and rollback storage, and block level deduplication within it (having a real-time copy is useless if you get infected with a virus)....plus another real-time asynchonously replicated SAN at an offsite location at least 100 miles away...plus the ISP connection to the offsite...plus the staff to support an additional site and all the complex software and clusters...plus cluster aware operating systems
That would be equally required under either solution. It's a wash.
What is NOT a wash, is all the "higher level" dedupe, replication, high avaialbility, indexing "magic." Which, that's what you're paying for when you buy a Tier 1 parallel array system from EMC/HDS/IBM (not so much NetApp).
If you're deploying a few hundred TB, don't have an internal team to write that software for you, and don't have the patents or licenced IP to use such technology, then you spend big bucks acquiring it as part of the array solution.
If you;re deploying Petabytes, and have a dedicated storage team and on staff people that can write a unique, highly available, high performance dedupe and excryption system for you without getting sued by a patent troll, then you can stand up $100K PB arrays...
Um, try comparing LIKE SPECS, including throwing in the larger batery, wireless N module, 9600 or better GPU, faster (not necessarily more) memory, the same CPU speed, etc. yea, i can get a base model dell for $800 too, but a $849 white macbook would have better proformance and 3 times the battery life.
i just configured a Studio 15 to match the hardware of a Macbook 15". Both were configured with 2.8GHz, 320GB5400 drives, 4GB RAM, and every other component possible to make them identical. Dell suffer as the 4350 simply can't compete with a 9600GT graphics card (less than hbalf the power), Dell battery is about 60% of Apple's and the machine has a higher draw, so overall about half the battery, it's a cheap plastic case, weights a ton more, has a slower memory bus (800 vs Mac's 1066), and lacks several other minor features (not including software disparity), Dell was $1923, Mac was $2388 (both with the 3 year waranty one would certainly want on a $2K machine, but take that out the difference is even less since Apple's waranty is over $100 cheaper). If you're OK with a slower, less upgradeable, less portable machine, $350 is not a bad difference, so buy the Dell... Dropping the Mac CPU and graphics a bit to be a true performance match, the difference was only $50, and you have yet to buy software for your Dell and I get a free iPod Touch too.
Droping to a lower class machine, 13" white macbook, Dells closest competitor was a 15" machine at over $1400. Their closest 13" was not only more expensive, but could not match the CPU or (even close on Graphics). Still i get a free iPod Touch.
Compare to a Mac mini or iMac and you'll equally find the EQUIVALENT machine is within a small percentage, in many cases the Apple machine is cheaper up front, and in all cases, with even a basic software package, the Dell is more expensive. If all you do is surf the web, send e-mail, and blog, then software is not a concern, but than I'll counter you need a netbook, not a notebook, and I would not reccomend an apple as the point of a mac is media, not simply surfing, and it;s NOT a good buy if that's all you do...
1) 2.0-3.5 @35% yes, thats fairly accurate for existing systems. Scalar efficiency and lessons learded are droping that figure for new instalations, and we're also looking at closer to 45% capacity in offshore areas primed for the next 3-6 years of deployments (since we're now eliminating "spin-up" higher wind speed requirements and we all now agree that it;s OK to use electricity for a few minutes to manually spin up a blade that can make energy at a lower available wind speed for hours on end...
2) it;s 3 billion per launch, not including the payload... if the kit and research were free it would still soct more.
A) you're not counting transmission lines from a near-polar source (unless you're counting the sattelite at 30% capacity and tripple it's 21B cost as well, which they're quoting 24/7, so i did as well)
B) its just to damned risky, too easy to shoot down (not just by terorist, but don't you think Korea would have serious interest in openly threatening Japan's power source with a single missle?)
There are VIABLE earth based technologies, not just wind, which will easily provide out power systems across multi-redundant and easily sustainable grids for far less money. This technology is unnecessary to research until we solve the other critical financial roadblocks... Shit, if we just threw $21 billion at solar research, in the 10 years it tookl to launch 1 damned bird with a 20% better efficincy than ground solar, we'd way more than tripple our own efficiency here. You can't spend on both, spend on the one that's going to solve a larger problem with less money and be more easily accessible to the world...
There are not today, but in 15-30 years this will practically be off-the-shelf tech for a well funded terorist organization (or worse, a rogue government like Korea!).
Think in 50+ year security terms (or 150, which is the life of a wind tower), not in near term realities.
OK, at 3-5 billion just to LAUNCH, excluding R&D and equipment you're launching, it;s still 3 times more expensive per GW.
Also, it;s not base load power unless you put it orbiting VERY far out (and circling the globe with mutiple sattelites) or deploying over poles, either of which is a rediculous line transmission cost compared to regionally interconnected wind farms over buried superconducting lines (which are not THAT expensive, and have been deployed and are continuing to be deployed worldwide).
1) the sattelite plan sends all poewr to a single point of collection, a serious problem for scalabiltiy and distribution far beyond wind. 2) Wind belongs offshore. Even still, explain to the hundreds of people you'll have to relocate for the mile across microwave collectors for the solar station, and the no-fly zones they'll create. 3) Superconducting lines are a reality, and deployed in multiple countries, and they're not rediculously expensive. Further, we'll need them anyway with any other alternative technolog, so its a non-issue. 4) Wind varies, yes, but provide a baseload wind source, from interconnected farms over large areas, and the variance fades. Overproduce to further enhance the base load (and use the overproduction to fuel RFTS fuel plats like ones proposed by dotyenergycom) 5) a power station on earth is difficult to destroy, a sattelite, regardless of how many you put up there, make 1GW each, and can be taked out by a simple truck mounted missle... China and russia have both proven they have this capability, others do too. 6) superconducting lines have limited environmental impact as the do not produce feild strentgh similar in any way to traditional high power lines, and they're buried, not on towers, so right of way is a limited issue, but again, space power also depends on these lines, so it;s a non-issue. Orbital power over JAPAN is NOT a baseload source, it has to be over one of the POLES to be a 24x7 source, and tell me the cost of THOSE travel lines... 7) Japan would be first, others will follow. Japan is the 2nd largest ecoomy (and growing) and a weakmness like orbital power is an easily exploited system to BRING terorism to japan. Also, Taliban isn't heavy there, but they do have terorists from multiple organizations operating in their country.
Wind is about $1B per gigawatt, and an installation is good for 150 years with generator replacements on average 35-50 years... It also creates thousands of jobs, is easy to repair, and is not a single point terorist threat target...
21 times more expensive, 100 times more complicated, and a single point of failure, BRILLIANT!
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I mean, come on, seriously. ANY time you;re doing something with an Apple device that's against the EULA or the provider's terms, Apple ALLWAYS turns off that function in the next release.
Further, you were TOLD WEEKS AGO that 3.1 broke the provider file hack and that only jailbroken devices and phones runnin 3.0.1 and older would be able to maintain tethering.
The hackers will win out and fix it soon enough, that is if AT&T doesn't start enabling it now anyway as they're doing with MMS.
Plus, adding tethering to an iPhone is $25 more per month, not $60 like it is on the crackberry or the Pre.
Sorry, when i started writing the post, i could not find a specifc reference that wasn't from back in 2008.
I could have back-edited the post to reflect this, but my assumption was right.
My wife's Verizon phone gets e-mail just fine, without paying for the data plan, and apparently every verizon phone with a color screen thats web enabled can do the same. My previos Sprint phone (back in 2002) had free e-mail as well, and my Cingular camera phone also got e-mail.
My parents have el-cheapo phones on a local carier network that don't even have cameras, I can can e-mail them photos...
Sure, not EVERY device can do it, and not on every plan, but the vast majority of phones on the market can send/receive e-mail. not all may be able to view the pic, but honestly, how often is it CRUCIAL someone see a pic I just took, or honestly, is simply letting them know there's one in their e-mail to view later good enough...
10% of the browser share was "more than half Windows" which means 4% or so of the total share was Safari on Macs (since the 0.88 percent of mobile safari also needs to be excluded).
That would lead me to believe that with 11% market penetration, and 4% browser penetration, safari use on Macs is actually less than 50%.
You blame AT&T as if they're the only provider of the iPhone worldwide, and as if they're the only ISP that has enforced provisions on Apple.
I still don't understand why MMS is even a point. Every single phone on the market can send and receive e-mail including media files for free... Tethering is a simple hack to implement, and even when they'll support it natively it will be $35 a month cheaper than anyone else's tethering option.
Apple has forced SIGNIFICANT changes top the phone networks. They're breaking their cost models, forcing architectural changes, and more.
Could they have released a device with 100% of what people want from day 1? No. The proviuders (originally Cingular) would not have touched it. Heck, Verizon turned it down as it was!. Remeber, those assholes have pertnerships with RIM, Microsoft, Palm, Nokia, and others. If they allowed Apple to come up with something that bypassed all that secondary revenue, and truly competed on uneven ground with features to blow the competition away, AT&T (and the others) would have had a real hard time getting anyone else to sell them devices for the non-iPhone crowd.
Also, slowly releasing features forces AT&T to stay in line. They approved the initial device, and now that they have 40 mjillion subscribers, when Apple updates the phone OS to support new stuff, it practically forces AT&T to comply, especailyl when other devices support the features on that network already. Any failure on AT&T's part, and Apple blows their contract away, and thos 40 million people might get a free pass from the FCC to dump their contracts and move to a friendlier subscriber. (or by FCC decree, get some free serfices, discounts, or potentially even refunds).
Apple has done more for the cell phone industry in this country than any other provider of a device. Why? there's no revenue sharing in their contract outside of the device sale itself. They could give two shits about AT&T's ability to nickle and dime us, nor any other phone company, and so they push the limits of what the network can do.
That AT&T contract WILL expire soon. Do NOT expect AT&T to get an exclusive extension. Then, instyantly, AT&T will drop prices, offer competing features, and be forced to finally compete (if the FCC and supreme court don;t make that happen sooner).
iPhone plan is the same price:
$59 personal plan + $30 data plan + $10 text plan = $99. (ok, so it's not unlimited text, but if you;'re blowing 1500+ texts a month on top of e-mail and chat, fuck you, you're $10 more).
Take this plan, on October 20th add to it a-list and asd one of your 5 numbers use your Google Voice number. Thus free, unlimited calling...
Oh, yea, the iPhone "unlimited" is in fact unlimited (except the limits placed on a few included apple apps like the store). Sprint caps you at 5GB (300MB off-network).
Further, AT&T will be charging an addtional $25 for tethering ($55 total), not $40 more as Sprint charges to add tethering to an everything plan. so if tethering is in your future, the AT&T plan is cheaper...
Even if you don;t have access to google voice, if you have an AT&T line at home, all calls between the iPhone and ANY AT&T customer (not just mobiles) are already free. I don't have GV yet, but I only have a 900 minute plan, and spend over 1600 minutes a month average (nearly 2500 occasionally). My high month thus far has been 620 in-plan minutes and my average is about 400... Also, I don't have a text/MMS plan, I use e-mail for free!
btw: AT&T will NOT let you turn off texting entirely on your device, but they WILL let you LIMIT/block incoming texts (though not calls, which is wierd). Their text blocking system supports relational strings, and dozens of options. I have mine set to only accept calls from a single area code, from residential numbers only. That area code is in mid Alaska. I've gotten 3 texts in a year :)
Sure, but then you'll be on Sprint's network, which doesn't work indoors in any of the 3 cities I go to regulary, and has virtually no reception at all in the country (even on major interstate passages).
Also, you're "unlimited" plan has a limit. 5GB on-network, 300MB off-network.
Since I can use a $59 basic plan (plus $30 for data), short of tecting (another $10 for 1500 texts). That's $90-100 for full unlimited calls (care of Google Voice and a-list) and full unlimited data (though the iPhone app store has file size limits, the rest of the net does not).
This makes my iPhone plan the SAME PRICE as your Sprint plan. Also, since I have an AT&T landline, i can not only call all AT&T mobiles for free, but also all land lines, and I don;t burn minutes from incoming or outgoing calls from any AT&T subscriber, or anyone on my a-list, or anyone who calls me via my google voice number.
Even before a-list and google voice, I have enjoyed about 1600 minutes a month average using the 450 a month plan without once exceeding my minutes (most people who call me are AT&T subscribers).
As for your homebrew community, your SDK is bareley available, there's no good marketplace established, and the few good apps that are available have comperable or better apps on the iPhone for a fraction of the price. Yes there are exceptions, but you buy 100 apps and I'll buy 100 apps and we'll see who has the lower total (if you can fine 100 unique apps for your Pre).
Also, with the money Palm blew, and their expected 1+M phones sold on launch week coming in more like 150,000, (and them predicting barely 1.5 million in 12 months to apples 11.6 million in the same time period) and on top a spiraling cost model (advertising, advertising, advertising, to try to pump demand, which since most agree the hardware feels cheap and the keyboard sucks, isn't getting them too far), there's a good chance Palm is going to be bankrupt in a couple of years tops and all those apps you have bought will be worthless as you migrate to Android (since you're obviously a hater and would never considder the Apple device even if it was both cheaper and better on all counts).
This is all assuming you;re OK with the on again/off again iTunes support which since they did not feel obligated to write their own app is basically the only (easy) way to get data in and out of your phone (it can be done, but will 90% of the general public care to figure, out how?). And if Apple sues them and adds to their mounting costs (or prevents the phone being sold and advertised with the app, which is far more likely), then they'll have REAL issues.
All this on top of what's essentiually a beta OS rushed to market that make NO guarantees of backward compatability as they move forward...
Come talk to me in 2 years when they've got version 3.0 of Palm's Pre OS on the market, an actual community (have yet to see it thus far), and some hardware I can drop without gasping, and maybe I'll reconsidder.
btw: I'm not a Mac Fanboi, I do not currently own a Mac, and I bought an iPhone only after planning on buying a Blackberry or Windows mobile and discovering it was actually cheaper over 2 years to buy an iPhoine (not including app purchases, which are far cheaper on the Apple device). I'm simply pointing out 1) your statements are wrong as are your numbers, 2) you're putting faith in an unproven device being punted by a dwindling firm, and 3) tethering IS available (to anyone who's smart enough to know to not upgrade a jailbroken or hacked device until they re-patch the jailbreak, which is NOt rocket science to learn), and won;t require a hack in 2 more weeks.
Oh, btw: Sprint terms of service: tethering is NOT supported under the everything plan. They CAN backbill you, plus penalties, if they discover you are tethering without an approved plan (which is REAL easy, mobile phones don't hit windowsupdate.com, nor adobe.com's flash updater, nor McAfee, nor any of a dozen other sites your PC will hit as soon as it ha
It would be interesting to see the site list they used to come up with this. My guess, a large number of sites used Silverlight, and defaulted to Flash if it was not IE being used to access it. I'd also like to see how each page was displayed to ensure that IE didn't cut corners.
But really, is this even relevent? you spend more battery lookingat the page then in rendering it, and a 7 minute difference in battery (in terms of hours) is not enough to force me to suffer through IE's querks.
I can't find any data on Firefox and Opera use on Macs, but I can say Safari use on Mac is not exactly a major monopoly as IE is in Windows.
I can confirm that Safari is 10% of the browser share as of July 2009 (and rising). This is based on browsing data, not on number of downloaded copies, so this is pretty accurately the percentage of people USING safari.
The iPhone is about 0.88 of that total, so not a significant contributor.
More than half of the internet use came from Windows systems.
I've been using Safari on my PC since 4.0 beta. The searchable internet history was really what did it for me. Never again do I forget how to get to a site I've recently been at...
It's fast, I love the launch pad (though stolen from Opera), it looks good, notifying me of updates to my favorite sites saves time, and since I primarily do research not socialize, I don't come across so many sites that not having a fully integrated ad blocker is an issue at all.
Firefox is slow, I can load 4 tabs in Safari before IE even lets me click in the address field. I use Opera as a fallback if something doesn't display in Safari properly (some web forms have issues), but unfortunately, I have to revert to IE more than anything as many of the sites I'm forced to visit for work pursposes still either use proprietary controlls or worse, are coded to only display in IE.
A cross-over solution was needed. Keep the functionality. If you created the doc in an app, you shouold expect it to open in that app if you still have it insdtalled. Same if someone sends you a word doc, you'd expect word to open automatically if you have it installed. However, we needed a solution for not-installed or default appications as well. If someone sent me an XLS document, but I don;t have office installed, i got an error, not a set of options... Users need it both ways.
Let me set a defualt. Let me have an alternate option (say, use a 2 finger double click to open that instead opens using the prefered app instead of my default selection. Now if I open the app in my default, ind it translated poorly, i simply close it, then 2 finger double click to reopen in the originating app.
Go a step further, publish the universal list of type/creator strings, and through an online resource, provide me a list of apps available online that can open the offending file if I do not have a compatible reader/editor.
For files that "belong to" and are not "created by" a program (associated installed binaries, graphics files, and program subcompoenets), the creator should be encoded so i allways know what app put those files on my system.
That might sound simple enough when refering to a doc file, or a compressed package. However, if my default document editor os OO, but someone sends me a file from office 2007 containing macros, OO is going to have issues with that. I'd like to know not only is it a .doc, but also that its a Word 2007 .doc file, so if it doesn't open in OO, or looks odd when it does, I can quickly identify the actual application used to make it and try opening it that app (if I have it or a compatible reader) instead.
This gets even more important when you look at files not typically opened by an end user as well. I occasionally search my system for folders containing files I can't itentify. Often uninstalling a program leaves crap behind, and if I find an unidentifiable folder, all the binaries in it should give me a clue as to the program they were associated with. I don;t want to guess...
Also, taking the type and creator away limits my ability to mess around with automator. it was yet another data point i could scan for without having to open the file first.
i agree Apple needed a method for giving the user control of how a program was opened, but taking away these options was not the best way.
It's a huge problem when you have 14K+ machines in an enterprise network, with over 200 servers in DMZs that can be compromised in some way, and an outdated mail filtering service and lagging AV/Malware security deployment.
We spend $70-100M a year upgrading and maintaining our IT infrastructure, and we stay a few years ehind the bleeding edge. We're a tight shop, multiple security tiers, and highly hardened systems. Still, we get numerous virus infections reported daily and constantly battle keeping the network secure.
Our data is very well protected, behind multiple tiers of firewalls and alternating operating platforms (there's never an "all windows" path, even across multiple servers, from a potential infection point to a data resource, making a very secure system overall), but that doesn't help us from having critial systems, or lots of workstations co down, causing disruption in the office. We use in-line and out-of-band netowkr monitoring technology, and can quickly identify a system that's gone rogue, but it's still a problem, and if one can whack other systems remotely, without having to infect them, through comonly open internal ports and protocols, that's another reason to deploy more non-windows systems...
Yup, I can confirm. i interviewed for a programming position at Boing on this project (DES) effort in 1997. There's also been lots of online material describing this chemical laser project over the years...
Here's a link on Boeing's own site from 1999 about it: http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/1999/news_release_990421b.html
Your ISP's network does not span the continent of the USA, it spanns small regional areas, interconnected by larger backbone pipes.
Rolling services out to US communities, especially suburban ares and developed HOA based communities, costs no more here than in other countries (aside from union labor influences and some red tape). Yes, there are ares of this country that are not easily served in highly rural areas, but WiMax should be deployed there, not hardlines, but very few of those areas are served, and most of them by DSL which runs over the copper lines every one of those houses is ALREADY equipped with.
Rolling cbl tv out to rural areas: expensive.
Rolling Telco services to rural areas: existing service, just add a few DSLAMs... Cross balance with dense populated city areas balances the equasion easily.
Ok, btw: I'm in a suburb of a major city on the southeast coast. I poay fracking $44.95 a month for 6dn/384up DSL. (modem diagnostics say it;s 8dn/512 up, but bill says lower). I run a bandwidth test 24x7 logged every 15 minutes across 3 East coast services for measurement. the BEST speed I have ever acquired is 4.1dn/312up. I average about 2.2dn/210up, about a 1/3rd of what i pay for, and about 50% if that vbetter than what i used to get for $14.99... on top of that, ping rates are all over the chart, and VoIP is choppy... And this is AT&T's service. I regularly have tests report back at under 1dn/50up.
...and my point remains, how are the others different?
and really, how much of this "shitty firmware" is actually forced by maintaining archaic backward compatibility to protocols that should have been killed 2 decades ago? (much more of a "IDE/SATA" sucks, than firmware sucks...)
It should also be noted, the offers they compared it to included storage virtualization, HBA multipathing, and is based on PRESENTED storage, not physical storage.
For a Tier 1 array, RAID 10 is typically standard, if not a high performance RAID -6, built on FC disks not SAS/SATA, with a LARGE cache (256MB or more for even a small array, GB on larger systems). Then there's disk journaling space for rollback writes and comitted write caching. To present 100TB of partitioned disk can take 250TB or more of physical disks underneath, and that's without getting into replication to a secondary SAN (which is billed differently from the primary chassis).
Comparing a single Tier 1 SAN chassis, fully configured and ready to go from EMC, with full support and onsite configuration, to a simple DASD configuration without even accounting for RAID parity drives let alone clustering, virtualzation, and avaialbility software is a faulty comparrison. Also, NO ONE pays retail for EMC hardware (discounts of 35% are NORMAL, up to 50% or more has been our experience).
Here's what I'd like to see: BackBlaze's cost for a FULLY REDUNDANT, Tier 1, RAID 10 system, with spare drives, split modularly across more than 1 datacenter in the same building and further replicated in real time (geoclustering) to an offsite locartion (not including WAN costs). All the software components for this included and fully configured, including a routine support cycle for software upgrades. Licensing for hundreds of connected servers, and all the SAN and 10G connectivity to the network. Then, compare that to a Symmetrix solution with the same capabilities.
I understand Backblaze, given their internal code base, can do this cheaper than the could have bought a real system, but can the SELL that solution on a price that is half or less than EMC's QUOTED (not MSRP) competitive price? Then I'd be impressed.
"Redundancy can be had for another $117,000." ...plus the inter SAN connectivity ...plus the SAN Fabric aware write plitting hardware and licensing ...plus the redundancy aware server connected to that SAN fabric ...plus the multipath HBA licensing for the servers ...plus multiple redundant HBAs per server and twice as many SAN fabric switches ...plus journaling and rollback storage, and block level deduplication within it (having a real-time copy is useless if you get infected with a virus). ...plus another real-time asynchonously replicated SAN at an offsite location at least 100 miles away ...plus the ISP connection to the offsite ...plus the staff to support an additional site and all the complex software and clusters ...plus cluster aware operating systems
This is why Tier 0 arrays cost in the millions...
That would be equally required under either solution. It's a wash.
What is NOT a wash, is all the "higher level" dedupe, replication, high avaialbility, indexing "magic." Which, that's what you're paying for when you buy a Tier 1 parallel array system from EMC/HDS/IBM (not so much NetApp).
If you're deploying a few hundred TB, don't have an internal team to write that software for you, and don't have the patents or licenced IP to use such technology, then you spend big bucks acquiring it as part of the array solution.
If you;re deploying Petabytes, and have a dedicated storage team and on staff people that can write a unique, highly available, high performance dedupe and excryption system for you without getting sued by a patent troll, then you can stand up $100K PB arrays...
"Apple to take responsibility"
They DID you ficking troll.
Um, try comparing LIKE SPECS, including throwing in the larger batery, wireless N module, 9600 or better GPU, faster (not necessarily more) memory, the same CPU speed, etc. yea, i can get a base model dell for $800 too, but a $849 white macbook would have better proformance and 3 times the battery life.
i just configured a Studio 15 to match the hardware of a Macbook 15". Both were configured with 2.8GHz, 320GB5400 drives, 4GB RAM, and every other component possible to make them identical. Dell suffer as the 4350 simply can't compete with a 9600GT graphics card (less than hbalf the power), Dell battery is about 60% of Apple's and the machine has a higher draw, so overall about half the battery, it's a cheap plastic case, weights a ton more, has a slower memory bus (800 vs Mac's 1066), and lacks several other minor features (not including software disparity), Dell was $1923, Mac was $2388 (both with the 3 year waranty one would certainly want on a $2K machine, but take that out the difference is even less since Apple's waranty is over $100 cheaper). If you're OK with a slower, less upgradeable, less portable machine, $350 is not a bad difference, so buy the Dell... Dropping the Mac CPU and graphics a bit to be a true performance match, the difference was only $50, and you have yet to buy software for your Dell and I get a free iPod Touch too.
Droping to a lower class machine, 13" white macbook, Dells closest competitor was a 15" machine at over $1400. Their closest 13" was not only more expensive, but could not match the CPU or (even close on Graphics). Still i get a free iPod Touch.
Compare to a Mac mini or iMac and you'll equally find the EQUIVALENT machine is within a small percentage, in many cases the Apple machine is cheaper up front, and in all cases, with even a basic software package, the Dell is more expensive. If all you do is surf the web, send e-mail, and blog, then software is not a concern, but than I'll counter you need a netbook, not a notebook, and I would not reccomend an apple as the point of a mac is media, not simply surfing, and it;s NOT a good buy if that's all you do...
1) 2.0-3.5 @35% yes, thats fairly accurate for existing systems. Scalar efficiency and lessons learded are droping that figure for new instalations, and we're also looking at closer to 45% capacity in offshore areas primed for the next 3-6 years of deployments (since we're now eliminating "spin-up" higher wind speed requirements and we all now agree that it;s OK to use electricity for a few minutes to manually spin up a blade that can make energy at a lower available wind speed for hours on end...
2) it;s 3 billion per launch, not including the payload... if the kit and research were free it would still soct more.
A) you're not counting transmission lines from a near-polar source (unless you're counting the sattelite at 30% capacity and tripple it's 21B cost as well, which they're quoting 24/7, so i did as well)
B) its just to damned risky, too easy to shoot down (not just by terorist, but don't you think Korea would have serious interest in openly threatening Japan's power source with a single missle?)
There are VIABLE earth based technologies, not just wind, which will easily provide out power systems across multi-redundant and easily sustainable grids for far less money. This technology is unnecessary to research until we solve the other critical financial roadblocks... Shit, if we just threw $21 billion at solar research, in the 10 years it tookl to launch 1 damned bird with a 20% better efficincy than ground solar, we'd way more than tripple our own efficiency here. You can't spend on both, spend on the one that's going to solve a larger problem with less money and be more easily accessible to the world...
There are not today, but in 15-30 years this will practically be off-the-shelf tech for a well funded terorist organization (or worse, a rogue government like Korea!).
Think in 50+ year security terms (or 150, which is the life of a wind tower), not in near term realities.
OK, at 3-5 billion just to LAUNCH, excluding R&D and equipment you're launching, it;s still 3 times more expensive per GW.
Also, it;s not base load power unless you put it orbiting VERY far out (and circling the globe with mutiple sattelites) or deploying over poles, either of which is a rediculous line transmission cost compared to regionally interconnected wind farms over buried superconducting lines (which are not THAT expensive, and have been deployed and are continuing to be deployed worldwide).
1) the sattelite plan sends all poewr to a single point of collection, a serious problem for scalabiltiy and distribution far beyond wind.
2) Wind belongs offshore. Even still, explain to the hundreds of people you'll have to relocate for the mile across microwave collectors for the solar station, and the no-fly zones they'll create.
3) Superconducting lines are a reality, and deployed in multiple countries, and they're not rediculously expensive. Further, we'll need them anyway with any other alternative technolog, so its a non-issue.
4) Wind varies, yes, but provide a baseload wind source, from interconnected farms over large areas, and the variance fades. Overproduce to further enhance the base load (and use the overproduction to fuel RFTS fuel plats like ones proposed by dotyenergycom)
5) a power station on earth is difficult to destroy, a sattelite, regardless of how many you put up there, make 1GW each, and can be taked out by a simple truck mounted missle... China and russia have both proven they have this capability, others do too.
6) superconducting lines have limited environmental impact as the do not produce feild strentgh similar in any way to traditional high power lines, and they're buried, not on towers, so right of way is a limited issue, but again, space power also depends on these lines, so it;s a non-issue.
Orbital power over JAPAN is NOT a baseload source, it has to be over one of the POLES to be a 24x7 source, and tell me the cost of THOSE travel lines...
7) Japan would be first, others will follow. Japan is the 2nd largest ecoomy (and growing) and a weakmness like orbital power is an easily exploited system to BRING terorism to japan. Also, Taliban isn't heavy there, but they do have terorists from multiple organizations operating in their country.
Wind is about $1B per gigawatt, and an installation is good for 150 years with generator replacements on average 35-50 years... It also creates thousands of jobs, is easy to repair, and is not a single point terorist threat target...
21 times more expensive, 100 times more complicated, and a single point of failure, BRILLIANT!