Agreed... but it's not just the extra money. There is crazy competition in the monitor business, and no one's going to add a touchscreen to a consumer monitor until it's a proven demand.
And I don't imagine it'll ever be. Touching the screen itself is always a compromise. You're trading supported, tiny motor movements with a mouse for unsupported, large motor movements on the touchscreen. So it's slower, less accurate, and if you think RSI is an issue with mice and keyboards, wait until workers are pointing at their screens all day. In the early days of CAD, they had lightpens used on many custom systems, which provided accuracy (though not sub-pixel, as a mouse can) along with everything you get from a touchscreen. They were universally traded for puck and mice, once the option was available, simply because of the fact everyone tired using using them.
Far better off doing something like Apple, if you really need touch, and adding a finger-operated graphics tablet sort of thing, with multitouch. That would at least prevent RSI and keep your screen clear of fingerprints.
But as you say, why make the desktop into a phone or tablet anyway? I mean, even Apple's not going that far, even as they add candy for iOS users into MacOS. The clear message is that Microsoft is in a panic. They missed out on mobile, despite having been in it for decades. Guess they just forgot to innovate that part. Anyway, they see Android and Apple with 80% of the smartphone market and 95% of the tablet market. Then they notice that some people will be able to use these as their only computing devices. Android supported that from the get-go, and Apple untethered themselves from the PC last year. If they really believe most users will go there, they have to believe that at some point, the desktop won't be an important enough market to sustain a company as massive as Microsoft.
Plus... where are you going? If you really wanted Linux or MacOS, you'd probably be running those already. And many of those vendors are doing the same kind of thing, by some degree throwing desktop users under the bus to better support other devices. Sure had worked well, too... Ubuntu did some of this, and... oh wait, they fell to second in popularity, with Mint now at #1. And lookie here... I'm running Mint myself.
And of course, Microsoft isn't even delivering anything recognizable as "Windows" to the ARM devices... no windows, in fact. No Win32. Fresh reboot, totally new thing called Windows, and only because that's the name for any OS that Microsoft produces, windows or not. I think they're kind of hoping no one notices that, either.
Hmm... I can't exactly recall any of my PCs having only a mouse. And no, I'm not just speaking of the 3DConnection device on this PC, or the graphics tablet on my home system. But the KEYBOARD. You can pretend to play an instrument on an iPad, but the only one you really have much chance at is something percussive, like a piano or drum... guitars just suck on touchscreens (well, at least for those who actually play guitar, they might be fine for the class of people who actually use a toy like Garage Band). All of which work better on a keyboard. Same with games.
Inherently. A capacitive touchscreen counts on the changes in capacitance to indicate a touch. It inherently takes time to measure that changing capacitor. A keyboard counts on a switch closure, much faster. Mice these days, they're using plused lasers, also much faster (at least potentially). This is critical for gaming or music -- gamers and musicians can notice delays of about 1ms.
Curiously, Microsoft is aware of the problem: http://phys.org/news/2012-03-microsoft-finger-1ms-touchscreen-video.html. Their claim is that most tablets are in the 50ms-100ms range these days. Fine for casual users, maybe. A horrible replacement for a mouse and keyboard, strings, a piano keyboard, drumsticks, etc.
Any tool can be used well, or abused. And yeah, lobbies are usually abused.
But if you look at the folks involved, there are some good attributes. Sure, none of these guys are likely to be privacy advocated. On the other hand, they may well be able to stand up for an Open Internet against the telco and Hollywood lobbies, since they all benefit from an open internet.
And I'm sure, like most lobbying groups, they'll be hiring the same kind of K-Street rats that all the other guys hire. So it's not as if they'll have any shortage of evil in the actual lobbyists. They'll know who's palms to grease.
Oh, back to the slider. The first to file gets the patent. However, that just means that if there is a first to invent instead, who can prove the prior art, the first to file doesn' t get the patent, neither does the first to file. In the past, in the US, if you could prove first to invent, you might get the patent even if you filed previously.
There have been numerous examples posted showing slide to unlock on other devices. Though it is a stupid argument... it's trivial enough to change that UI.
It also doesn't really look all that much like the iPad they did ultimately produce. That alone should have invalidated the claims, if not the patent itself.
While it's correct that hundreds if not thousands of people worked to bring the first iPad to market, it's absolutely untrue that hundreds or even dozens worked on the physical design. That's all they're talking about here. Apple's designers, and Mr. Jobs himself, were inspired by what came before, both in what didn't work, what did work, what looked cool... and of course, the iPhone before it, which is a nearly identical design on a smaller scale.
Samsung did no less work in delivering their tablet. Ok, sure, maybe they spent a little less time thinking about the form factor, but it's not as if the iPad was such a major advance for Apple, technologically, since it's basically just a big iPod Touch. Business and success wise, sure, big win there, but that has nothing to do with the level of difficulty. In fact, easier for Apple, since the controlled both SW and HW. Samsung controls far more of the hardware, but they launched tablets before Google was ready for them.
And in fact, the easy proof for this is going over the various fan sites and artists concepts. The general form factor of the iPhone was long, long rumored before it shipped... artists were posting concepts for over a year, based around the rumor that Apple was developing either a phone or an "all screen" iPod. You only had to look at the Palm TX for inspiration -- keep the screen (identical to the iPhone's), eliminate most of the buttons (which was always a Jobs thing, just like the Mac mouse and touchpads, even today), basically make the shape a bit less distinctive (the TX echoed the old Palm V's slight flange at the bottom, intended to assist your grip on the thing), and there's your iPhone. They even kept the same basic "row of icons" UI, though of course, unlike the Palm, the original iPhone didn't allow any control over where each icon went.
Same circle of rumors surrounding the iPad. Only, much less "originality" in the artists guesses... everyone pretty much figured it was going to be a big fat iPod.
Agreed. Any off the shelf inductor is composed of inductive, resistive, and capacitive components. And in fact, go above its self resonance frequency and the component will behave redominantly as a capacitor. Just sayin.... the datasheet still says "inductor". No one expects a memristor to be the world's first perfect component.
Well, a six digit newbie could still technically be a software-only type. Hard to believe, I know, that such folk might not have built their own motherboards, tape interfaces, hacked TVs into CVBS monitors, or even read early issues of "Kilobaud", Byte, or Radio-Electronics. But its possible.
On the other hand, any dude self-titled "ubergeek" not knowing what a memristor is... time for a name change, buddy.
I also suggest that a six digiter fool enough to admit such a crisis of common knowledge around here, in public, must be spending too much time on Facebook or something.
EVERY YEAR Apple has the same issue. They release one product in each of their iOS lines once per year. Everyone knows this. Of course buyers wait for the new model, once it gets close to that time of the year. This is exactly why Android first beat iPhone in the spring, nearly a year before most of the pundits expected it.
Even Apple knows this is the case. That's why iPhone, iPad, and Mac introductions were spaced around the calendar. And, with the Mac falling to below 15% of Apple's business, probably the reason they pushed the iPhone from late Spring to early Fall.
Nothing to see here folks... other than the ego doesn't seem to have left the company with the loss of Mr. Jobs.
Well, by Dr. Who standards, the current production is downright luxurious. But yeah, it's lower budget, because the Brits were long ago smart enough to realize that if you had a really good story to tell, the production values could be what your budget allowed. Unfortunately, in a culture largely dominated by style over substance (much of what's on television, Apple Computer, etc) no one's likely to take that risk for a US production.
Ok, sure, "Sy-Fi" channel cheaps out on both the story and the production values for their "monster movie of the week"... that doesn't count.
I think only Apple Fanbois made the claim that no one wanted a 7" tablet. Samsung, Amazon, and B&N have long proved that some people prefer that form factor. Same with the Phablet -- the Apple-influenced pundits pronounced Samsung's 5" phone/tablet dead before arrival. It's a bit too large for me, but it's done quite well.
The main thing I wanted in a tablet was full daylight visibility... so I have an obscure Notion Ink Adam from India, using the Pixel Qi display. Does the job, and I can read books or guitar music even on the beach. I'm not sure if I'd be happy with a 7" screen, particularly for reading chords while playing. The other thing I'd like but didn't get isn't just a microSD but a full sized SD card. The microSD was just a phone-industry thing, it has no place in a full sized tablet. The full sized SD makes it easy to use the tablet to view photos and videos directly from camera cards, upload 'em, etc. which is another big and useful thing.
Much like the PC industry, this sector is moving away from the flawed notion of "one size fits all". You know, when Apple starts to stop believing that idea, the end is well in sight.
The "before and after iPad" article you refer to is highly skewed in Apple's favor. No big surprise, being on an Apple site. No doubt, the iPad was the one successful one from 2010 and earlier. But the HP Slate 500, the Fusion Garage JooJoo, and several "picture frame" tablets were introduced before the iPad was unveiled. Not to mention the iPhone itself, which was essentially the same design, just smaller.
Err... 2012 is the hottest year (so far) on record. Again. Well, ok... 2010 was the hottest on record, globally... tied with 2005. Also the 34th consecutive year with temps above the 20th century average. 2011 was 0.12C cooler, so yeah, in a very small and statistically meaningless way, things are getting cooler -- if you're writing this from 2011.
It's not really about hard work -- a patent can easily be issued on someone's brilliant stroke of genius.
The problem here is, first, that this is obvious. Things that have similar form factors but were not computers were done this way for ages: photo frames, digital photo frames, Etch-a-Sketch, dozens of tablet computers as dramatized in Sci-Fi. The iPhone and other smartphones themselves, going back to all those Palms with thin screen borders and rounded edges. All of which should lead any PTO to the conclusion that this was "obvious to one skilled in the art", and thus, not patentable (or anything similar).
Second problem... not sure what Apple's using in the USA to enforce this. But the sketches in the "Community Design" they were awarded in Europe didn't look anything like the Galaxy Tab. Or the iPad.
Thing is, they'd don't arrest you or confiscate "copies" or "rip-offs". That's the whole point of Apple filing design patents or whatever they've got. The situation you're talking about are counterfeits. Very different. Samsung isn't labelling their device "Apple" or even "Appel" and trying to pass it off as one of Cupertino's own.
Aside from certain design patents and the appropriate trademarks, there's very little protection against rip-offs. In fact, if you got to most any Drug or Discount store, you'll often find the store brands, right next to the national brands and featuring very similar packaging. Maybe a little blatent, sure, but not illegal. And not what Samsung was doing.
On the other hand, they seem to have moved well past Apple's designs, and shown they're more than capable of making something not only different but better. I have a Samsung-made Galaxy Nexus Phone, and it's much nicer looking than an iPhone. No chrome (had enough of that in the '61 T-Bird I owned in college) and no big stupid button on the front. Also, much better screen.
Apple's pretty much copying the other guys these days on the OS side of things, and it's only a matter of time before they follow Samsung and the others into 4+" phones and 7" tablets. And don't be surprised to see them sued back for doing just that. And that'll be just as stupid as the Apple lawsuits were, but that's the thing you build when you let lawyers run the country:-)
Yup. They have much the same problem as T-Mo... they're only on the higher frequency cell band.
I live in a small wooded lot (24 acres of woods, two of house and yard). I can get Verizon, occasionally, in my cellar. No 4G in the area, but Verizon's on the 850MHz band, for both 2G and 3G, which punches though trees and walls pretty effectively. After all, this used to be the top end of the UHF TV band, back when it went to channel 83.
Sprint can sometimes be picked up at the end of my driveway. Now sure, some of this may be better cellular placement by Verizon. But Sprint's limited to 1900MHz for voice and 3G data. And worse yet, they're on 2500MHz for Wi-Max. Having developed radio technology in my cellar (we eventually got a real office), I've done plenty of testing in this area. Our original 2.4GHz radio made it less than ten feet into the forest. A couple of years later, the 425MHz radio pushed through the forest, across the cornfield, and all the way (1/2 mile) to a country road.
Sprint's LTE should make this much better... they're using the old Nextel band, 800MHz or so, which will be pretty similar in performance to AT&T and Verizon on the 700MHz band. Won't entirely solve the problem of towers, but as it stands, T-Mo and Sprint will simply need more towers for the same coverage. AT&T's a bit of both; they can do 2G on 850MHz, and 4G at 700MHz as mentioned, but 3G is on both 850MHz and 1900MHz, so it's less robust than Verizon's. Faster, sure, but no use if you can't get it in the first place.
And when quoting speeds, they all usually tell you where they've capped it. Every data service has a performance cap. Sometimes, as in the case of Verizon and Sprint 3G, it's probably at the limit of the protocol -- EvDO isn't going to download faster than 3.1Mb/s no matter what you do. And only that if you're the only user and basically sitting under the cell tower. And assuming they have a fast enough backhaul. AT&T typically caps their 3G at 7.2Mb/s or 14.4Mb/s, while T-Mo doesn't cap it much at all, but calls it 4G to confuse everything. Sprint, on the other hand, runs a real "near-4G" Wi-Max, but caps it at around 8-12Mb/s (depends a little if you're on Sprint, Comcast, or Clear service plans -- it's all the same network). And I don't think they even bothered rolling this out beyond cities, in a large part due to the short range of the 2.5GHz band.
Microsoft has already said: Windows 8 apps will not run on Windows 7 Phone. Period. Not Windows Phone 7.5, not 7.8, not 7.9999999999. They have told developers that Windows 7 Phone apps will run on Windows 8 Phone, they can certainly target both that way. But given the vast market for even a Vista-like rollout of Windows 8 (given that the same apps will run on tablets and desktops), and it's impossible to believe developers will stick to the Windows 7 Phone model for very long.
I was actually kind of shocked that Microsoft didn't push the X-Box connection. After all, say what you will about the vast number of Windows users... many are begrudging users, "I need this to run Program X, otherwise I'd use [Linux|MacOS|Commodore 64|etc]". But people do love their X-Boxes... particularly now that the "red ring of death" problem seems to be fixed in the new models.
Plus, look at Apple... they have the #1 mobile gaming platform with the iPhone/iPod Touch. I don't think they had any idea games would be so hot early on, but they certainly have developed the iPhone in that direction... the major updates have all been about increasing gaming performance. The iPhone 4S was the fastest gaming phone, even with a down-clocked CPU, when introduced.
And yet, look at the Nokias -- the Windows 7 Phone flagship doesn't have the GPU power of the iPhone 3GS, much less something recent. What's that all about? Does Microsoft even think about how to sell these things? They killed off their business connection with all the changes between WinMo and Windows 7 Phone, and they claim to be all about the consumer now. But consumers are gamers, and they at least had a natural position there in the gaming world. Maybe they'll do that with Windows 8 Phone, but it sure seems like the just don't see these obvious connections.
It does actually cost them SOMETHING to provide phone service to you. So that $610 is the actual income they're getting, the gross, not the net profit.
Also, keep in mind that subsidies, while they exist, are completely artificial in magnitude. The Telcos (particularly in North America, but anywhere phones are subsidized, you'll have this) are the only way a phone manufacturer can sell a phone in any volume. If you want your phone sold by a Telco in every mall in the country, you have to negotiate the actual price that Telco will pay. You want to actually make money on that. The Telco will agree to pay a certain percentage of your MSRP, they want a very large discount. Since "no one" pays the MSRP anyway, you agree, and so that $299 Samsung Galaxy Nexus I bought on-contract last fall retails for $650.
But that's mostly funny money, because that MSRP is jacked up beyond all normal CE margins. Google pretty much pointed that out earlier this year, when they put the GSM version of the Galaxy Nexus (not being sold by any Telco on the states) up in the Play Store for $399. But it's easy to see in the Apple world, too. Apple certainly charges the same crazy prices if you buy an unbundled iPhone (and they don't have a model that fully works on both AT&T and T-Mobile in the USA... Google's was actually the first one). But price out an iPod Touch... same hardware, other than the lack of a microphone ($0.50), a cellular modem ($25) and a somewhat larger battery ($5-$10). That's not going to get you from $250 to $650, no matter how you do the math.
Elop didn't just take a gamble, he made really stupid decisions. Sure, tell the world you're going to be the leading developer of Windows 7 Phone devices. Great! But did he really need to say they were going to be exclusively Windows Phone, a whole year before they even had a Windows Phone product, and well before any real guarantee of success in the Windows Phone market. He didn't have to publicly kill SymbianOS in order to embrace Windows Phone.
But he did. And that's the big reason Nokia's dying... SymbianOS phones had been good money. Even though they were losing market share, the market was actually still growing when Elop took over, just not as fast as the overall smartphone market. Fast forward to today, and SymbianOS sales fell by 29% in 1Q2012, and Nokia lost $1.2 billion. They're now advising that the just-ended second quarter results are even worse -- SymbianOS dying every faster, and Windows Phone not growing enough to make any significant difference.
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Agreed... but it's not just the extra money. There is crazy competition in the monitor business, and no one's going to add a touchscreen to a consumer monitor until it's a proven demand.
And I don't imagine it'll ever be. Touching the screen itself is always a compromise. You're trading supported, tiny motor movements with a mouse for unsupported, large motor movements on the touchscreen. So it's slower, less accurate, and if you think RSI is an issue with mice and keyboards, wait until workers are pointing at their screens all day. In the early days of CAD, they had lightpens used on many custom systems, which provided accuracy (though not sub-pixel, as a mouse can) along with everything you get from a touchscreen. They were universally traded for puck and mice, once the option was available, simply because of the fact everyone tired using using them.
Far better off doing something like Apple, if you really need touch, and adding a finger-operated graphics tablet sort of thing, with multitouch. That would at least prevent RSI and keep your screen clear of fingerprints.
But as you say, why make the desktop into a phone or tablet anyway? I mean, even Apple's not going that far, even as they add candy for iOS users into MacOS. The clear message is that Microsoft is in a panic. They missed out on mobile, despite having been in it for decades. Guess they just forgot to innovate that part. Anyway, they see Android and Apple with 80% of the smartphone market and 95% of the tablet market. Then they notice that some people will be able to use these as their only computing devices. Android supported that from the get-go, and Apple untethered themselves from the PC last year. If they really believe most users will go there, they have to believe that at some point, the desktop won't be an important enough market to sustain a company as massive as Microsoft.
Plus... where are you going? If you really wanted Linux or MacOS, you'd probably be running those already. And many of those vendors are doing the same kind of thing, by some degree throwing desktop users under the bus to better support other devices. Sure had worked well, too... Ubuntu did some of this, and ... oh wait, they fell to second in popularity, with Mint now at #1. And lookie here... I'm running Mint myself.
And of course, Microsoft isn't even delivering anything recognizable as "Windows" to the ARM devices... no windows, in fact. No Win32. Fresh reboot, totally new thing called Windows, and only because that's the name for any OS that Microsoft produces, windows or not. I think they're kind of hoping no one notices that, either.
Hmm... I can't exactly recall any of my PCs having only a mouse. And no, I'm not just speaking of the 3DConnection device on this PC, or the graphics tablet on my home system. But the KEYBOARD. You can pretend to play an instrument on an iPad, but the only one you really have much chance at is something percussive, like a piano or drum... guitars just suck on touchscreens (well, at least for those who actually play guitar, they might be fine for the class of people who actually use a toy like Garage Band). All of which work better on a keyboard. Same with games.
Inherently. A capacitive touchscreen counts on the changes in capacitance to indicate a touch. It inherently takes time to measure that changing capacitor. A keyboard counts on a switch closure, much faster. Mice these days, they're using plused lasers, also much faster (at least potentially). This is critical for gaming or music -- gamers and musicians can notice delays of about 1ms.
Curiously, Microsoft is aware of the problem: http://phys.org/news/2012-03-microsoft-finger-1ms-touchscreen-video.html. Their claim is that most tablets are in the 50ms-100ms range these days. Fine for casual users, maybe. A horrible replacement for a mouse and keyboard, strings, a piano keyboard, drumsticks, etc.
Any tool can be used well, or abused. And yeah, lobbies are usually abused.
But if you look at the folks involved, there are some good attributes. Sure, none of these guys are likely to be privacy advocated. On the other hand, they may well be able to stand up for an Open Internet against the telco and Hollywood lobbies, since they all benefit from an open internet.
And I'm sure, like most lobbying groups, they'll be hiring the same kind of K-Street rats that all the other guys hire. So it's not as if they'll have any shortage of evil in the actual lobbyists. They'll know who's palms to grease.
Oh, back to the slider. The first to file gets the patent. However, that just means that if there is a first to invent instead, who can prove the prior art, the first to file doesn' t get the patent, neither does the first to file. In the past, in the US, if you could prove first to invent, you might get the patent even if you filed previously.
There have been numerous examples posted showing slide to unlock on other devices. Though it is a stupid argument... it's trivial enough to change that UI.
This is a design patent, not a useful system or business method patent.
It also doesn't really look all that much like the iPad they did ultimately produce. That alone should have invalidated the claims, if not the patent itself.
While it's correct that hundreds if not thousands of people worked to bring the first iPad to market, it's absolutely untrue that hundreds or even dozens worked on the physical design. That's all they're talking about here. Apple's designers, and Mr. Jobs himself, were inspired by what came before, both in what didn't work, what did work, what looked cool... and of course, the iPhone before it, which is a nearly identical design on a smaller scale.
Samsung did no less work in delivering their tablet. Ok, sure, maybe they spent a little less time thinking about the form factor, but it's not as if the iPad was such a major advance for Apple, technologically, since it's basically just a big iPod Touch. Business and success wise, sure, big win there, but that has nothing to do with the level of difficulty. In fact, easier for Apple, since the controlled both SW and HW. Samsung controls far more of the hardware, but they launched tablets before Google was ready for them.
And in fact, the easy proof for this is going over the various fan sites and artists concepts. The general form factor of the iPhone was long, long rumored before it shipped... artists were posting concepts for over a year, based around the rumor that Apple was developing either a phone or an "all screen" iPod. You only had to look at the Palm TX for inspiration -- keep the screen (identical to the iPhone's), eliminate most of the buttons (which was always a Jobs thing, just like the Mac mouse and touchpads, even today), basically make the shape a bit less distinctive (the TX echoed the old Palm V's slight flange at the bottom, intended to assist your grip on the thing), and there's your iPhone. They even kept the same basic "row of icons" UI, though of course, unlike the Palm, the original iPhone didn't allow any control over where each icon went.
Same circle of rumors surrounding the iPad. Only, much less "originality" in the artists guesses... everyone pretty much figured it was going to be a big fat iPod.
And a bunch of others (year indicates introduction, not shipments):
HP Slate 500, 2009: http://h71016.www7.hp.com/html/Slate/index.asp
CrunchPad, 2008: http://www.esarcasm.com/8319/crunchpad-dead/
Axiotron Modbook 2007: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiotron_Modbook
Knight-Ridder tablet, 1994 : http://adverlab.blogspot.com/2010/09/ipad-like-newspaper-tablet-concept-from.html
Arthur C. Clarke's Newspad: 1968: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3949GAIokg&feature=player_embedded
Agreed. Any off the shelf inductor is composed of inductive, resistive, and capacitive components. And in fact, go above its self resonance frequency and the component will behave redominantly as a capacitor. Just sayin.... the datasheet still says "inductor". No one expects a memristor to be the world's first perfect component.
Well, a six digit newbie could still technically be a software-only type. Hard to believe, I know, that such folk might not have built their own motherboards, tape interfaces, hacked TVs into CVBS monitors, or even read early issues of "Kilobaud", Byte, or Radio-Electronics. But its possible.
On the other hand, any dude self-titled "ubergeek" not knowing what a memristor is... time for a name change, buddy.
I also suggest that a six digiter fool enough to admit such a crisis of common knowledge around here, in public, must be spending too much time on Facebook or something.
EVERY YEAR Apple has the same issue. They release one product in each of their iOS lines once per year. Everyone knows this. Of course buyers wait for the new model, once it gets close to that time of the year. This is exactly why Android first beat iPhone in the spring, nearly a year before most of the pundits expected it.
Even Apple knows this is the case. That's why iPhone, iPad, and Mac introductions were spaced around the calendar. And, with the Mac falling to below 15% of Apple's business, probably the reason they pushed the iPhone from late Spring to early Fall.
Nothing to see here folks... other than the ego doesn't seem to have left the company with the loss of Mr. Jobs.
Well, by Dr. Who standards, the current production is downright luxurious. But yeah, it's lower budget, because the Brits were long ago smart enough to realize that if you had a really good story to tell, the production values could be what your budget allowed. Unfortunately, in a culture largely dominated by style over substance (much of what's on television, Apple Computer, etc) no one's likely to take that risk for a US production.
Ok, sure, "Sy-Fi" channel cheaps out on both the story and the production values for their "monster movie of the week"... that doesn't count.
Finally time to do Neil Gaiman's "Sandman", I think.
And here's the corrected article:
http://macfags.blogspot.com/2012/02/apple-reality-distortion-field.html
I think only Apple Fanbois made the claim that no one wanted a 7" tablet. Samsung, Amazon, and B&N have long proved that some people prefer that form factor. Same with the Phablet -- the Apple-influenced pundits pronounced Samsung's 5" phone/tablet dead before arrival. It's a bit too large for me, but it's done quite well.
The main thing I wanted in a tablet was full daylight visibility... so I have an obscure Notion Ink Adam from India, using the Pixel Qi display. Does the job, and I can read books or guitar music even on the beach. I'm not sure if I'd be happy with a 7" screen, particularly for reading chords while playing. The other thing I'd like but didn't get isn't just a microSD but a full sized SD card. The microSD was just a phone-industry thing, it has no place in a full sized tablet. The full sized SD makes it easy to use the tablet to view photos and videos directly from camera cards, upload 'em, etc. which is another big and useful thing.
Much like the PC industry, this sector is moving away from the flawed notion of "one size fits all". You know, when Apple starts to stop believing that idea, the end is well in sight.
The "before and after iPad" article you refer to is highly skewed in Apple's favor. No big surprise, being on an Apple site. No doubt, the iPad was the one successful one from 2010 and earlier. But the HP Slate 500, the Fusion Garage JooJoo, and several "picture frame" tablets were introduced before the iPad was unveiled. Not to mention the iPhone itself, which was essentially the same design, just smaller.
Err... 2012 is the hottest year (so far) on record. Again. Well, ok... 2010 was the hottest on record, globally... tied with 2005. Also the 34th consecutive year with temps above the 20th century average. 2011 was 0.12C cooler, so yeah, in a very small and statistically meaningless way, things are getting cooler -- if you're writing this from 2011.
It's not really about hard work -- a patent can easily be issued on someone's brilliant stroke of genius.
The problem here is, first, that this is obvious. Things that have similar form factors but were not computers were done this way for ages: photo frames, digital photo frames, Etch-a-Sketch, dozens of tablet computers as dramatized in Sci-Fi. The iPhone and other smartphones themselves, going back to all those Palms with thin screen borders and rounded edges. All of which should lead any PTO to the conclusion that this was "obvious to one skilled in the art", and thus, not patentable (or anything similar).
Second problem... not sure what Apple's using in the USA to enforce this. But the sketches in the "Community Design" they were awarded in Europe didn't look anything like the Galaxy Tab. Or the iPad.
Thing is, they'd don't arrest you or confiscate "copies" or "rip-offs". That's the whole point of Apple filing design patents or whatever they've got. The situation you're talking about are counterfeits. Very different. Samsung isn't labelling their device "Apple" or even "Appel" and trying to pass it off as one of Cupertino's own.
Aside from certain design patents and the appropriate trademarks, there's very little protection against rip-offs. In fact, if you got to most any Drug or Discount store, you'll often find the store brands, right next to the national brands and featuring very similar packaging. Maybe a little blatent, sure, but not illegal. And not what Samsung was doing.
On the other hand, they seem to have moved well past Apple's designs, and shown they're more than capable of making something not only different but better. I have a Samsung-made Galaxy Nexus Phone, and it's much nicer looking than an iPhone. No chrome (had enough of that in the '61 T-Bird I owned in college) and no big stupid button on the front. Also, much better screen.
Apple's pretty much copying the other guys these days on the OS side of things, and it's only a matter of time before they follow Samsung and the others into 4+" phones and 7" tablets. And don't be surprised to see them sued back for doing just that. And that'll be just as stupid as the Apple lawsuits were, but that's the thing you build when you let lawyers run the country :-)
Yup. They have much the same problem as T-Mo... they're only on the higher frequency cell band.
I live in a small wooded lot (24 acres of woods, two of house and yard). I can get Verizon, occasionally, in my cellar. No 4G in the area, but Verizon's on the 850MHz band, for both 2G and 3G, which punches though trees and walls pretty effectively. After all, this used to be the top end of the UHF TV band, back when it went to channel 83.
Sprint can sometimes be picked up at the end of my driveway. Now sure, some of this may be better cellular placement by Verizon. But Sprint's limited to 1900MHz for voice and 3G data. And worse yet, they're on 2500MHz for Wi-Max. Having developed radio technology in my cellar (we eventually got a real office), I've done plenty of testing in this area. Our original 2.4GHz radio made it less than ten feet into the forest. A couple of years later, the 425MHz radio pushed through the forest, across the cornfield, and all the way (1/2 mile) to a country road.
Sprint's LTE should make this much better... they're using the old Nextel band, 800MHz or so, which will be pretty similar in performance to AT&T and Verizon on the 700MHz band. Won't entirely solve the problem of towers, but as it stands, T-Mo and Sprint will simply need more towers for the same coverage. AT&T's a bit of both; they can do 2G on 850MHz, and 4G at 700MHz as mentioned, but 3G is on both 850MHz and 1900MHz, so it's less robust than Verizon's. Faster, sure, but no use if you can't get it in the first place.
And when quoting speeds, they all usually tell you where they've capped it. Every data service has a performance cap. Sometimes, as in the case of Verizon and Sprint 3G, it's probably at the limit of the protocol -- EvDO isn't going to download faster than 3.1Mb/s no matter what you do. And only that if you're the only user and basically sitting under the cell tower. And assuming they have a fast enough backhaul. AT&T typically caps their 3G at 7.2Mb/s or 14.4Mb/s, while T-Mo doesn't cap it much at all, but calls it 4G to confuse everything. Sprint, on the other hand, runs a real "near-4G" Wi-Max, but caps it at around 8-12Mb/s (depends a little if you're on Sprint, Comcast, or Clear service plans -- it's all the same network). And I don't think they even bothered rolling this out beyond cities, in a large part due to the short range of the 2.5GHz band.
Microsoft has already said: Windows 8 apps will not run on Windows 7 Phone. Period. Not Windows Phone 7.5, not 7.8, not 7.9999999999. They have told developers that Windows 7 Phone apps will run on Windows 8 Phone, they can certainly target both that way. But given the vast market for even a Vista-like rollout of Windows 8 (given that the same apps will run on tablets and desktops), and it's impossible to believe developers will stick to the Windows 7 Phone model for very long.
I was actually kind of shocked that Microsoft didn't push the X-Box connection. After all, say what you will about the vast number of Windows users... many are begrudging users, "I need this to run Program X, otherwise I'd use [Linux|MacOS|Commodore 64|etc]". But people do love their X-Boxes... particularly now that the "red ring of death" problem seems to be fixed in the new models.
Plus, look at Apple... they have the #1 mobile gaming platform with the iPhone/iPod Touch. I don't think they had any idea games would be so hot early on, but they certainly have developed the iPhone in that direction... the major updates have all been about increasing gaming performance. The iPhone 4S was the fastest gaming phone, even with a down-clocked CPU, when introduced.
And yet, look at the Nokias -- the Windows 7 Phone flagship doesn't have the GPU power of the iPhone 3GS, much less something recent. What's that all about? Does Microsoft even think about how to sell these things? They killed off their business connection with all the changes between WinMo and Windows 7 Phone, and they claim to be all about the consumer now. But consumers are gamers, and they at least had a natural position there in the gaming world. Maybe they'll do that with Windows 8 Phone, but it sure seems like the just don't see these obvious connections.
It does actually cost them SOMETHING to provide phone service to you. So that $610 is the actual income they're getting, the gross, not the net profit.
Also, keep in mind that subsidies, while they exist, are completely artificial in magnitude. The Telcos (particularly in North America, but anywhere phones are subsidized, you'll have this) are the only way a phone manufacturer can sell a phone in any volume. If you want your phone sold by a Telco in every mall in the country, you have to negotiate the actual price that Telco will pay. You want to actually make money on that. The Telco will agree to pay a certain percentage of your MSRP, they want a very large discount. Since "no one" pays the MSRP anyway, you agree, and so that $299 Samsung Galaxy Nexus I bought on-contract last fall retails for $650.
But that's mostly funny money, because that MSRP is jacked up beyond all normal CE margins. Google pretty much pointed that out earlier this year, when they put the GSM version of the Galaxy Nexus (not being sold by any Telco on the states) up in the Play Store for $399. But it's easy to see in the Apple world, too. Apple certainly charges the same crazy prices if you buy an unbundled iPhone (and they don't have a model that fully works on both AT&T and T-Mobile in the USA... Google's was actually the first one). But price out an iPod Touch... same hardware, other than the lack of a microphone ($0.50), a cellular modem ($25) and a somewhat larger battery ($5-$10). That's not going to get you from $250 to $650, no matter how you do the math.
Elop didn't just take a gamble, he made really stupid decisions. Sure, tell the world you're going to be the leading developer of Windows 7 Phone devices. Great! But did he really need to say they were going to be exclusively Windows Phone, a whole year before they even had a Windows Phone product, and well before any real guarantee of success in the Windows Phone market. He didn't have to publicly kill SymbianOS in order to embrace Windows Phone.
But he did. And that's the big reason Nokia's dying... SymbianOS phones had been good money. Even though they were losing market share, the market was actually still growing when Elop took over, just not as fast as the overall smartphone market. Fast forward to today, and SymbianOS sales fell by 29% in 1Q2012, and Nokia lost $1.2 billion. They're now advising that the just-ended second quarter results are even worse -- SymbianOS dying every faster, and Windows Phone not growing enough to make any significant difference.