Honestly my experience with the Xoom thus far suggests its screen is too high-res. The chipset doesn't have the fillrate to keep up properly.
That doesn't mean the screen is too high-res; it simply means the GPU is too fucking SLOOOOOOOW.
Remember, you can never be too rich, too thin, or have too much display real-estate!
But 1024 X 768 is a perfectly reasonable compromise for a handheld device. If it wasn't, enough people would have bitched (and they haven't) and Apple would have changed it. Having said that, I'm pretty sure that the iPad 3 WILL have more display resolution, but I could be wrong. The iPad's IPS display is stellar, and the cost to manufacture will continue to go down, which will leave more room in the BOM for other things, like more Flash and RAM. Speaking of which, did you notice that the iPad 2 DID have double the RAM? That was a sound engineering decision, due in part to apps like GarageBand needing to keep big arrays in memory, and because of multitasking, not simply a marketing "bullet point". In fact, I don't think that SJ even mentioned that in the iPad 2 Keynote.
Obviously, the Xoom's higher-res display WAS simply a marketing "advantage" to list. But without the GPU and memory bandwidth to back it up, it ends up being a DISadvantage. Nice going, Motorola! Stick to cellphones (which, sometimes, they can't even do those right, either!).
No, he was right, but you're missing the part where he talks about making it safe to put in the microwave. Press Alt+F4 to show that part, then it will make sense.
Well, typical Slashdotter that I am, I didn't RTFA; but that's only one thing. I'm not exactly sure that exposing the electronics to that much microwave energy for that long would be a good thing, anyway. Also, wouldn't the sugar-water in the LCD get pretty damned hot, too?!?
Thanks, but I think I'll take my "heat" from the other end of the EM spectrum! This isn't a frozen burrito, it's an electronic device. I get nervous when I send that stuff through an XRay machine, let alone let it sit in a microwave with the power on, even for a few seconds. That's just insane.
Oh, and as for the "Alt+F4" "tip", as you might notice from my username, I don't run Windows; but thanks for ASSuming that EVERYONE does, you insensitive clod.;-)
Sorry, this has nothing to do with Samsung and Apple "partnering" (which they dont. Apple uses Samsung as a fabrication house for ICs that THEY designed, and a display and flash memory vendor; nothing nearly as grandiose as a "partnership"). You have left out the other half of the equation: Software and Persistance-Of-Vision. Apple has it; Samsung doesn't.
Yes they are not truly partners but Apple simply doesn't drop off a chip design and waits 6 months for Samsung to make millions of them. They have to work with Samsung to have the chips made and on time.
And your point being? I can tell you've never worked with a Contract Manufacturer. There is a LOT of back-and-forth in ANY project you send to a CM. Any project, any CM.
As for software, Samsung could complete with Apple, but like I said, it will take time, effort, and money to do so. Samsung could adopt Android, buy an OS like HP did, design their own, etc. They currently do not have that capability today.
And by that time, the iPad 5 will be out, with Holographic Gesture Control, Quad-Core 3GHz ARM20 cores and 100-hour battery life.
BTW, when was the last time that Samsung actually DESIGNED a microcontroller from scratch? They are primarily a FABRICATION house for other people's designs. For the most part, Apple innovates; for the most part, Samsung copies and builds. Big difference.
Samsung is an ARM licensee just like TI and Qualcomm although I think Qualcomm does more low level optimizations.
Apple isn't just an ARM licensee, they helped DEVELOP the ARM. There is literally NO ONE on the planet with more ARM experience than Apple.
They made Apple's first iPhone chip.
No, they FABRICATED it. They didn't DEVELOP it. It was those people Apple got from the PASemi acquisition that did the development work. It's the difference between designing a photocopier and operating one.
Their current generation of chips includes the Samsung Hummingbird which is used on all their Galaxy devices including the Google Nexus S.
Again, hardware, but no OS or "Roadmap". So, what's your point, again?
As you say, people are used to using dead tree books...
MS recently published a story about cloud computing, and using horseless carriage metaphors... I think the same applies here.
A tablet is a new form factor not really been pushed before, trying to use it like a book or like a desktop computer is wrong, and is very much like fitting a fake horse head on the front of your car. Apple seem to understand this, while MS keep trying to shoehorn existing ideas into incompatible form factors.
Well, until the internet gets an order of magnitude or two faster, and deep-packet inspection becomes impractical due to bullet-proof encryption, I'm with the horse-head people as far as Cloud Computing goes.
I'm still with you on the tablet vs. book thing, though!;-)
And one of the best U.S. muscle cars of the '60s (Ford Mustang) went pretty far with that Horse Head metaphor, LOL!
Right now it appears that Apple is using every advantage they have to keep the pricing low. A serious competitor can emerge if they are willing to devote a concerted amount of time, effort, and money. Samsung is one such company however they partner and compete with Apple at the same time and can't put together a concerted effort.
Sorry, this has nothing to do with Samsung and Apple "partnering" (which they dont. Apple uses Samsung as a fabrication house for ICs that THEY designed, and a display and flash memory vendor; nothing nearly as grandiose as a "partnership").
You have left out the other half of the equation: Software and Persistance-Of-Vision. Apple has it; Samsung doesn't.
Samsung doesn't really write OS code at anywhere near the complexity-level of iOS (firmware in embedded products doesn't count, nor does rebadging something like Android/Linux), and so will never be able to compete with such a tightly-integrated product like the iPad (and all the other iOS products). Besides, they simply don't have the "vision" to do so. Samsung's products are sometimes very feature-rich and even occasionally, truly innovative, but there's never a "roadmap" of "this product also works with that and that and that" of their other products. They are always too focused on how many of other people's logos they can put on the outside of the box (HDMI! DVD! Blu-Ray! their boxes always trumpet), rather than tying all that stuff together in a way that makes sense to, and is actually useful to, MOST people (which far outnumber slashdot readers), which is one of, if not the most important of, Apple's strengths.
I agree, however, that Samsung DOES have the chip and display fabrication chops to give Apple a run for their money; but that's not the same as being able to produce a product as well-designed in both hardware AND software as is the iPad. And in the end, that's what matters.
BTW, when was the last time that Samsung actually DESIGNED a microcontroller from scratch? They are primarily a FABRICATION house for other people's designs. For the most part, Apple innovates; for the most part, Samsung copies and builds. Big difference.
Sounds a lot like an iPhone 4 and the Macbook Air. I work for an authorized Mac sales and service center; our Mac specialist had to use a heat gun to take the screen/glass off on a Macbook Air. Research for the iPhone 4 returns similar needs.
Like the article says, a heatgun did the trick.
If you work on consumer electronics products, then you well know that the use of high-performance adhesives is very common, and certainly not limited to Apple products.
From a mechanical-engineering and "packaging" standpoint, displays are particularly well-suited for the use of high-performance adhesive attachment methods. In a former life, I worked for an industrial controls company that replaced a really problematic front panel/display attachment bracket-thing with a thin line of industrial cyanoacrylate adhesive. That method wasn't perfect, either; but it was a damn sight more manufacturable than the bracket and screws that it replaced. And this was back in 1992, so it ain't exactly a new solution to this problem. In fact, it's a widely-accepted industry practice. Loctite and 3M, to name two adhesives manufacturers, have a whole line of industrial products specifically designed for this sort of thing.
It is almost certainly an account shared by multiple people at an "online relationship management" firm. Definitely an account set up for pure shilling. Someone suggested a while back actually as a reaction to this devxo character that slashdot institute some kind of first post delay for newly created accounts. Seems like a good idea to me.
I'm too lazy to look; but is there a consistency in writing style and word-choices? That would be a big giveaway that the account was used for Astroturfing or Shilling; or just an overzealous MS fan with too much Thyme on his Ham.
I don't think it's undoable. While the whole dual screen was interesting, the machine was a combination of ideas. The first is the dual screen movement. Using one side for navigation, and the other as a work area.
What the Courier needed was its ideas incorporated into Windows Metro. Metro should be able to do all the stuff courier could, like scan documents quick, have applications that you can scribble on with your finger, then take a picture on it, record video or voice and have it as one work area note, similar to the Memo Note (iOS app). And the CORE cool thing that Windows can do that no other company can is to treat any Windows PC as a secondary screen.
Now that would be a value proposition. Except Microsoft can't even come out with copy and paste on time.
I'm pretty sure that the iPad 2 can do all that. And in a Touch UI paradigm, you really CAN'T have a "secondary screen" (that isn't touch), unless it is used just for showing content. With that in mind, there are some iPad apps that can do this to a secondary display (iMeetingPad, MapProjector, VGA Expedition), and if you Jailbreak your iPad, Cydia has something called "Display Out" that does that, too. I understand that isn't exactly the same thing as using your computer as an iPad secondary display; but it is kinda close.
But all the big interest seems in making the iPad function as a secondary display for your computer, not the other way around.
And I guess i have to ask "Why?" The whole idea of a Tablet is PORTABILITY; if you are sitting at your (much better spec-ed) computer, why would you want to use your iPad as the PRIMARY input and control method? Other than a Touch UI (which is not as advanced in many ways as a conventional mouse-driven GUI), I really don't see the advantages to any but the most fringe applications.
I don't really like the normal tablet style of iPad. I mean, it works I guess, but people are more used to holding books. I got interested in tablets after I saw Microsoft's Courier, but it looks like they cancelled it.
Correction: You can't cancel what never was. The Courier was never a serious project; it was merely a way to counteract growing Apple tablet rumors.
Is there any other more natural feeling tablet? It would be much better than the usual ones. Since all the Android devices are quite much clones of each other, I hope someone uses this to their advantage and makes a device like Courier. Or Microsoft should continue their project. It's really interesting anyway.
And entirely impractical in terms of battery life, weight and cost. That's one of the very many reasons it could not have been a serious project in the first place.
We just all grew up with dead-tree books. That's why we, quite naturally, want to hold something in a familiar form-factor. But there is almost no advantage in the dead-tree-publishing world taken of that form-factor. In other words, information on each page is almost without exception simply a linear presentation of the data. Once in a great while, you will see a book take advantage of a two-page "spread"; but those are pretty rare instances that are more than made up for by the many, many advantages of electronic reading devices, not the least of which (he says, being over 50) is the ability to make print larger. Plus, color publishing is no longer a truly premium-price publishing choice, etc, etc. Not to mention that, when reading in bed, that "fold-in-the-middle" habit of books is actually quite annoying to have to constantly deal with. And, as I said, any two-display device would be horrendously heavy, costly, and expensive. There's a reason you haven't seen "Courier-like" tablets. They simply aren't practical.
In other words, stop being bound (no pun) by the familiar. It's a new day for publishing. Get with it, or GTFO.;-)
Once again, I'm confounded by how Slashdotters will obviously put quite a bit of time and thought into a reply that doesn't address a single point of the parent topic.
Slashdot of 2011 seems suspiciously like/b/ of 2008.
Oh, did you HAVE a point? It seemed like your comment was nothing more than a personal opinion that "Apple could open up iOS a bit more" and not suffer any security consequences. You offered not one shred of evidence to support your point-of-view.
I believe my reply to that pronouncement more than adequately addressed your original comment.
1. You said that the choice shouldn't be between "Incompetence and a Walled Garden." I replied that a lot of things "shouldn't be"; but are. I think that addresses the point. To explain further, what I meant is that users cannot, by and large, be trusted to be adequately wary regarding threats (a point that the Android security debacles have underscored QUITE clearly). And with 250k iPhone Apps already, Apple obviously isn't being very tyrannical regarding what gets posted. Yes, there have been a few, VERY few, isolated instances of questionable App Store rejections (the truly dumbest of which they have reversed themselves on); but by and large, Apple has pretty much not said "No, you can't sell this". The whole "boobies" thing, IMHO, was because the iPad was coming out, and Apple KNEW that they would have the iPad in MANY small children's hands, and in schools, and they KNEW that no matter what "prove yourself" protection they put on the App Store, it would be circumvented, and Apple's push to get the iPad into educational markets would come to an end, and, more importantly, small children would have access to not only boobies, but who-knows-what-else. There are PUH-LENTY of places to view that stuff already; so it isn't like Apple was denying anything in a real sense; they just didn't want THEIR store to become "seedy", which, if you saw how many STUPID "booby" apps there WERE, was actually happening. Before Apple kicked the sex stuff to the curb, it was actually getting QUITE difficult to find LEGIT apps, because the App Store had become SO polluted with that stuff, that ANY search result would return TONS of sex apps, which you would have to wade through to find what you REALLY wanted. Ask nearly any early iPhone owner. It was really getting stupid.
2. You opined that Apple could "open up IOS a bit more" and nothing bad would happen. Well, first off, you don't QUALIFY "Open up iOS" really means; so that is pretty difficult to "address". And you don't QUANTIFY what "a bit more" is; so that is impossible to "address". Nonetheless, I did my best to explain WHY Apple's decision, even if you happen to disagree with it, was a sound one for the vast majority (and that's all ANYONE can try to satisfy) of iOS users. The fact that that chafes against a REALLY small minority is simply unavoidable. Apple can only have ONE policy in this regard, and so they have no choice but to try and make that policy workable for most of their actual, and potential, iOS users. And my original reply more-than-adequately "addressed" why, in my OPINION, I thought that Apple had done exactly the right thing, overall.
Any more "addressing" of your "points" will simply have to wait until you deign to favor us wth a more compelling argument than "I think that Apple can change this"; which is all you have actually done. There is no "because" in your arguments. How does anyone "address" a simple PRONOUNCEMENT? And yet, I have done so. Twice now.
So, perhaps, if you don't understand at this point, you'll just have to STAY "confounded".
You are being retarded. I never claimed anyone should be like me and I'm comfortable being in an audience of less than 2,000 people worldwide.
As for the others...
- tvout: standard definition on iPhone, 720p on my phone; compatible with any hdmi device, app
Ok; but since the iPad 2 does HDMI out now, I would be very surprised if the iPhone 5 won't, too.
- samba: fair enough, same with android market, but kernel support is obviously superior
Meh. Since most people won't be doing large file-transfers from/to their phone, I think that a userland implementation is fine, thank you.
- enc-fs: I have an ecryptfs partition on my sdcard accessible via Root Explorer / ConnectBot
I DO think that is cool...
- iptables: certainly counts, wouldn't trust or use android without it
In my research, I found that, although there isn't kernel support for iptables in iOS, there are some OpenBSD userland pf tools floating around in iOS that could be pressed into service.
- strace: critical for debugging root apps
which you probably shouldn't even be installing and running on something like a phone anyway...b
- gcc: it's fun to compile C progs on my phone but this is vain I admit
Ya think?;-)
I don't really understand your complaints about rooting since it would be the very first thing I'd do to an iPhone as well.
I'm sure you would. But here's my boggle with that: br>
The only way that the iOS platform can retain its stellar track-record of no working exploits in the wild (yes, I know there have been like 2, but those have been patched long ago, and besides, the number is nothing like what Android has been experiencing. And I haven't been following WP7 closely enough to comment on that platform) is to be UN-Jailbroken.
Tell me how to get tv-out, iptables, strace, encrypted-fs, nfs, samba, sshd, and gcc working on the iPhone and I might consider it.
Until then it's you who doesn't get it. I don't want a simple phone.
First, despite what your WANT, it's a PHONE. It is you that is at the extreme edge of the bell-curve of smartphone users. You understand that at least, don't you?
Contrary to your asinine requirements, I would be absolutely shocked to find that more than.05% (or lower) of smartphone users, even Android users, THINK they need an entire desktop or server OS and development toolchain running on every single device, from your toaster to your TV.
Honest. It's ok to have devices that "merely" EXECUTE code.
So, with that out of the way, let's talk about a few of your more reasonable requests... Keep in mind that I have restricted these solutions to those available to a NON-Jailbroken iOS device. And, to be fair, I have also searched against non-rooted Android capabilites (since that's only fair).
As for tv-out? Is that some *NIX util of which I am unaware? Because if it is Television Output you want, that's officially supported.
Samba? There's an app for that! Not free ($16), but, from the description, it seems pretty cool. Therre might be others, but I stopped when I found EZShare Pro. There is a free version called EZShare Files, too. If I read the product info correctly, it also more-or-less has an ssh server included. Of cousr, Samba on Android requires a rooted device, so it isn't really available to Android users, either.
encrypted-fs? Doesn't seem to be available on iPhone. Work on that on Android is just getting started; so you can't have that on Android yet, either.
Similarly, strace, iptables and gcc would require a rooted Android; therefore they don't count for the purposes of this discussion, either.
So, unless you want to change the rules, it really doesn't look like a non-rooted Android is any more useful to you than a non-Jailbroken (rooted) iPhone.
In the end all you really need for Android is the ADB binary and an app which roots the phone for you. After updating the recovery partition then it's as simple as pressing two buttons to upload the update zip.
Wow! You DO realize, don't you, that even a pretty damn tech-savvy Android user (not talking about a developer; just a decidedly non-n00b user) would process most of those instructions as "noise", right?
Don't get me wrong--I have no problem with Apple saying "Hey, you don't get any of the cool new features of iOS 4.3 on your iPhone 3G." I think it's a little tacky, but I can understand that the hardware may not be able to deal with it.
So which is it? You think it's a little tacky (implying that Apple is somehow deliberately slighting users of old hardware, to force the purchase of a new phone); OR do you Understand that the hardware may not be able to deal with it? (implying that you realize that Apple can't do impossible things any more than anyone else can)
They are pretty much mutually-exclusive positions.
So maybe it's time for software companies to support these things for a bit longer than 2 years...
Maybe so; but as we all know, "high-tech" devices "evolve" particularly fast compared to your Audi's internals; so it is far more likely that it becomes simply impractical to support the older hardware far sooner than with a typical car.
Precisely. Carrier OTAs are only good for non-nerds or people who don't care about their phone. Everyone else just roots it (if they can*) and installs whatever they want.
* Even bootloader-locked phones like Motorola's can usually have the entire Android platform stack recompiled from compatible-AOSP and flashed after rooting.
Typical Android. You guys really just don't get it, do you?
you mean "reveal codes"? that was awesome! they simply admitted that the formatting would have bugs and/or get too complicated, and they let you bypass it if you had the chops to edit it directly.
I must admit that I stood in awe as a late attorney friend (RIP) of mine just WHIPPED on that textual formatting stuff in WP5 (IIRC). This was around 1992. I've never seen selecting, cutting and pasting done with such alacrity before or since, in any word processing environment.
But it was always about 6 levels of too arcane for me, since by that time, I'd already been using WYSIWIG word processing on the Lisa, and then the Mac for about eight years, since LisaWrite (then MacWrite, then Microsoft Word for Mac) early 1984.
I might appreciate the walled garden a little more... if I didn't have an iPhone 3G on my desk. It is only JUST out of its two-year service agreement with AT&T. I'm sure there are other people who bought new 3G phones who are still under contract but out of support.
What phone am I going to get next? Well, I crossed iPhone 4 off the list already, so I'll probably get an Android device and reconsider Apple when the iPhone 5 or 6 comes out.
While I agree to some extent, the choice shouldn't have to be between incompetence and a walled garden.
There's a lot of things that "shouldn't have to be"; but are.
It would drive the carriers insane, but Apple could open up iOS a bit more without causing compatibility problems between apps and OS versions.
In your (not-so) humble opinion, of course. And your credentials to be making that bold and sweeping statement?
Since the Curated Collection seems to be working just-a fine for all but a fairly small minority of the smartphone-buying (and using) public, and the number of iOS exploits in the wild even without the security patches has been in the (low) single-digits, I think Apple has really got a handle on this "post-PC" paradigm (and no, that DOESN'T mean only CONSUMPTION) so far ahead of everyone else, that it really isn't even in the same orbit.
The iPhone 3G seems to be the last of the "first generation" of iPhone hardware. I would bet that the versions have diverged to the point that it is getting impractical to support the older architecture, without patching larger and larger swaths of OS code. However, I am sure that if a actual new exploit targeting the earlier devices appears in the wild, gets past Apple's Approval process, that a "Security Update" will happen to at least iOS 4.2.
I am sure someone will comment at this point about my username; but with only a couple of exploits in the wild, (which got quickly patched, and one of which involved a Jailbreak process from an app downloaded outside of the iOS App Store) obviously even the previous iOS versions aren't particularly low-hanging fruit.
And considering the "marketshare" that iOS (and its various devices) enjoy, the naysayers (see? I didn't call them "Haters") hardly have that old horse to haul out and beat this time.
Say what you will, but with 250k+ apps for the iPhone, the "Walls" of the "Garden" are, for most users, pretty far away. And since those "Walls" seem to be doing a damn good job of keeping bad guys out, I am willing to cautiously allow Apple to man the gates to the "Walled Garden".
And it's not like you're making a choice about a life-partner; it's a fucking phone, fercrissakes!
Try it, don't like it, choose again.
At some point, the user has to exercise his ultimate freedom to choose. And no amount of RDF can allow the user to inform himself BEFORE choosing.
I played with one for about 1.5 minutes before my friends drug me away. Can't say I'm impressed with it, but then again, I barely had time to play with it at all.
Totally unlike istuff and android was about the only impression I got in that short time.
Don't WP7 and Zune MkII (or whatever it's called) share an OS?
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sure it's fine if you're happy to wait on swap all the time.
I'm not so sure that iOS actually HAS a virtual-memory provision. I don't know for sure, however. Maybe an iOS dev. can clarify?
Honestly my experience with the Xoom thus far suggests its screen is too high-res. The chipset doesn't have the fillrate to keep up properly.
That doesn't mean the screen is too high-res; it simply means the GPU is too fucking SLOOOOOOOW.
Remember, you can never be too rich, too thin, or have too much display real-estate!
But 1024 X 768 is a perfectly reasonable compromise for a handheld device. If it wasn't, enough people would have bitched (and they haven't) and Apple would have changed it. Having said that, I'm pretty sure that the iPad 3 WILL have more display resolution, but I could be wrong. The iPad's IPS display is stellar, and the cost to manufacture will continue to go down, which will leave more room in the BOM for other things, like more Flash and RAM. Speaking of which, did you notice that the iPad 2 DID have double the RAM? That was a sound engineering decision, due in part to apps like GarageBand needing to keep big arrays in memory, and because of multitasking, not simply a marketing "bullet point". In fact, I don't think that SJ even mentioned that in the iPad 2 Keynote.
Obviously, the Xoom's higher-res display WAS simply a marketing "advantage" to list. But without the GPU and memory bandwidth to back it up, it ends up being a DISadvantage. Nice going, Motorola! Stick to cellphones (which, sometimes, they can't even do those right, either!).
No, he was right, but you're missing the part where he talks about making it safe to put in the microwave. Press Alt+F4 to show that part, then it will make sense.
Well, typical Slashdotter that I am, I didn't RTFA; but that's only one thing. I'm not exactly sure that exposing the electronics to that much microwave energy for that long would be a good thing, anyway. Also, wouldn't the sugar-water in the LCD get pretty damned hot, too?!?
;-)
Thanks, but I think I'll take my "heat" from the other end of the EM spectrum! This isn't a frozen burrito, it's an electronic device. I get nervous when I send that stuff through an XRay machine, let alone let it sit in a microwave with the power on, even for a few seconds. That's just insane.
Oh, and as for the "Alt+F4" "tip", as you might notice from my username, I don't run Windows; but thanks for ASSuming that EVERYONE does, you insensitive clod.
Sorry, this has nothing to do with Samsung and Apple "partnering" (which they dont. Apple uses Samsung as a fabrication house for ICs that THEY designed, and a display and flash memory vendor; nothing nearly as grandiose as a "partnership"). You have left out the other half of the equation: Software and Persistance-Of-Vision. Apple has it; Samsung doesn't.
Yes they are not truly partners but Apple simply doesn't drop off a chip design and waits 6 months for Samsung to make millions of them. They have to work with Samsung to have the chips made and on time.
And your point being? I can tell you've never worked with a Contract Manufacturer. There is a LOT of back-and-forth in ANY project you send to a CM. Any project, any CM.
As for software, Samsung could complete with Apple, but like I said, it will take time, effort, and money to do so. Samsung could adopt Android, buy an OS like HP did, design their own, etc. They currently do not have that capability today.
And by that time, the iPad 5 will be out, with Holographic Gesture Control, Quad-Core 3GHz ARM20 cores and 100-hour battery life.
BTW, when was the last time that Samsung actually DESIGNED a microcontroller from scratch? They are primarily a FABRICATION house for other people's designs. For the most part, Apple innovates; for the most part, Samsung copies and builds. Big difference.
Samsung is an ARM licensee just like TI and Qualcomm although I think Qualcomm does more low level optimizations.
Apple isn't just an ARM licensee, they helped DEVELOP the ARM. There is literally NO ONE on the planet with more ARM experience than Apple.
They made Apple's first iPhone chip.
No, they FABRICATED it. They didn't DEVELOP it. It was those people Apple got from the PASemi acquisition that did the development work. It's the difference between designing a photocopier and operating one.
Their current generation of chips includes the Samsung Hummingbird which is used on all their Galaxy devices including the Google Nexus S.
Again, hardware, but no OS or "Roadmap". So, what's your point, again?
As you say, people are used to using dead tree books... MS recently published a story about cloud computing, and using horseless carriage metaphors... I think the same applies here.
A tablet is a new form factor not really been pushed before, trying to use it like a book or like a desktop computer is wrong, and is very much like fitting a fake horse head on the front of your car. Apple seem to understand this, while MS keep trying to shoehorn existing ideas into incompatible form factors.
Well, until the internet gets an order of magnitude or two faster, and deep-packet inspection becomes impractical due to bullet-proof encryption, I'm with the horse-head people as far as Cloud Computing goes.
;-)
I'm still with you on the tablet vs. book thing, though!
And one of the best U.S. muscle cars of the '60s (Ford Mustang) went pretty far with that Horse Head metaphor, LOL!
Right now it appears that Apple is using every advantage they have to keep the pricing low. A serious competitor can emerge if they are willing to devote a concerted amount of time, effort, and money. Samsung is one such company however they partner and compete with Apple at the same time and can't put together a concerted effort.
Sorry, this has nothing to do with Samsung and Apple "partnering" (which they dont. Apple uses Samsung as a fabrication house for ICs that THEY designed, and a display and flash memory vendor; nothing nearly as grandiose as a "partnership"). You have left out the other half of the equation: Software and Persistance-Of-Vision. Apple has it; Samsung doesn't.
Samsung doesn't really write OS code at anywhere near the complexity-level of iOS (firmware in embedded products doesn't count, nor does rebadging something like Android/Linux), and so will never be able to compete with such a tightly-integrated product like the iPad (and all the other iOS products). Besides, they simply don't have the "vision" to do so. Samsung's products are sometimes very feature-rich and even occasionally, truly innovative, but there's never a "roadmap" of "this product also works with that and that and that" of their other products. They are always too focused on how many of other people's logos they can put on the outside of the box (HDMI! DVD! Blu-Ray! their boxes always trumpet), rather than tying all that stuff together in a way that makes sense to, and is actually useful to, MOST people (which far outnumber slashdot readers), which is one of, if not the most important of, Apple's strengths.
I agree, however, that Samsung DOES have the chip and display fabrication chops to give Apple a run for their money; but that's not the same as being able to produce a product as well-designed in both hardware AND software as is the iPad. And in the end, that's what matters.
BTW, when was the last time that Samsung actually DESIGNED a microcontroller from scratch? They are primarily a FABRICATION house for other people's designs. For the most part, Apple innovates; for the most part, Samsung copies and builds. Big difference.
Hey, Spaniards sold mirrors to native Americans and charged them all the gold, just because mirrors were shiny. Notice any similarity?
No.
You can use a microwave as well - it's a bit faster.
Aluminum back on the iPad. Macbook Air, also an Aluminum case.
Try again.
Sounds a lot like an iPhone 4 and the Macbook Air. I work for an authorized Mac sales and service center; our Mac specialist had to use a heat gun to take the screen/glass off on a Macbook Air. Research for the iPhone 4 returns similar needs.
Like the article says, a heatgun did the trick.
If you work on consumer electronics products, then you well know that the use of high-performance adhesives is very common, and certainly not limited to Apple products.
From a mechanical-engineering and "packaging" standpoint, displays are particularly well-suited for the use of high-performance adhesive attachment methods. In a former life, I worked for an industrial controls company that replaced a really problematic front panel/display attachment bracket-thing with a thin line of industrial cyanoacrylate adhesive. That method wasn't perfect, either; but it was a damn sight more manufacturable than the bracket and screws that it replaced. And this was back in 1992, so it ain't exactly a new solution to this problem. In fact, it's a widely-accepted industry practice. Loctite and 3M, to name two adhesives manufacturers, have a whole line of industrial products specifically designed for this sort of thing.
It is almost certainly an account shared by multiple people at an "online relationship management" firm. Definitely an account set up for pure shilling. Someone suggested a while back actually as a reaction to this devxo character that slashdot institute some kind of first post delay for newly created accounts. Seems like a good idea to me.
I'm too lazy to look; but is there a consistency in writing style and word-choices? That would be a big giveaway that the account was used for Astroturfing or Shilling; or just an overzealous MS fan with too much Thyme on his Ham.
I don't think it's undoable. While the whole dual screen was interesting, the machine was a combination of ideas. The first is the dual screen movement. Using one side for navigation, and the other as a work area.
What the Courier needed was its ideas incorporated into Windows Metro. Metro should be able to do all the stuff courier could, like scan documents quick, have applications that you can scribble on with your finger, then take a picture on it, record video or voice and have it as one work area note, similar to the Memo Note (iOS app). And the CORE cool thing that Windows can do that no other company can is to treat any Windows PC as a secondary screen.
Now that would be a value proposition. Except Microsoft can't even come out with copy and paste on time.
I'm pretty sure that the iPad 2 can do all that. And in a Touch UI paradigm, you really CAN'T have a "secondary screen" (that isn't touch), unless it is used just for showing content. With that in mind, there are some iPad apps that can do this to a secondary display (iMeetingPad, MapProjector, VGA Expedition), and if you Jailbreak your iPad, Cydia has something called "Display Out" that does that, too. I understand that isn't exactly the same thing as using your computer as an iPad secondary display; but it is kinda close.
But all the big interest seems in making the iPad function as a secondary display for your computer, not the other way around.
And I guess i have to ask "Why?" The whole idea of a Tablet is PORTABILITY; if you are sitting at your (much better spec-ed) computer, why would you want to use your iPad as the PRIMARY input and control method? Other than a Touch UI (which is not as advanced in many ways as a conventional mouse-driven GUI), I really don't see the advantages to any but the most fringe applications.
The more book-like reader was the Kno.
Horrible site. Looks like a Hax0r site.
I stopped watching the instant the STYLUS came out.
I don't really like the normal tablet style of iPad. I mean, it works I guess, but people are more used to holding books. I got interested in tablets after I saw Microsoft's Courier, but it looks like they cancelled it.
Correction: You can't cancel what never was. The Courier was never a serious project; it was merely a way to counteract growing Apple tablet rumors.
Is there any other more natural feeling tablet? It would be much better than the usual ones. Since all the Android devices are quite much clones of each other, I hope someone uses this to their advantage and makes a device like Courier. Or Microsoft should continue their project. It's really interesting anyway.
And entirely impractical in terms of battery life, weight and cost. That's one of the very many reasons it could not have been a serious project in the first place.
;-)
We just all grew up with dead-tree books. That's why we, quite naturally, want to hold something in a familiar form-factor. But there is almost no advantage in the dead-tree-publishing world taken of that form-factor. In other words, information on each page is almost without exception simply a linear presentation of the data. Once in a great while, you will see a book take advantage of a two-page "spread"; but those are pretty rare instances that are more than made up for by the many, many advantages of electronic reading devices, not the least of which (he says, being over 50) is the ability to make print larger. Plus, color publishing is no longer a truly premium-price publishing choice, etc, etc. Not to mention that, when reading in bed, that "fold-in-the-middle" habit of books is actually quite annoying to have to constantly deal with. And, as I said, any two-display device would be horrendously heavy, costly, and expensive. There's a reason you haven't seen "Courier-like" tablets. They simply aren't practical.
In other words, stop being bound (no pun) by the familiar. It's a new day for publishing. Get with it, or GTFO.
Once again, I'm confounded by how Slashdotters will obviously put quite a bit of time and thought into a reply that doesn't address a single point of the parent topic.
Slashdot of 2011 seems suspiciously like /b/ of 2008.
Oh, did you HAVE a point? It seemed like your comment was nothing more than a personal opinion that "Apple could open up iOS a bit more" and not suffer any security consequences. You offered not one shred of evidence to support your point-of-view.
I believe my reply to that pronouncement more than adequately addressed your original comment.
1. You said that the choice shouldn't be between "Incompetence and a Walled Garden." I replied that a lot of things "shouldn't be"; but are. I think that addresses the point. To explain further, what I meant is that users cannot, by and large, be trusted to be adequately wary regarding threats (a point that the Android security debacles have underscored QUITE clearly). And with 250k iPhone Apps already, Apple obviously isn't being very tyrannical regarding what gets posted. Yes, there have been a few, VERY few, isolated instances of questionable App Store rejections (the truly dumbest of which they have reversed themselves on); but by and large, Apple has pretty much not said "No, you can't sell this". The whole "boobies" thing, IMHO, was because the iPad was coming out, and Apple KNEW that they would have the iPad in MANY small children's hands, and in schools, and they KNEW that no matter what "prove yourself" protection they put on the App Store, it would be circumvented, and Apple's push to get the iPad into educational markets would come to an end, and, more importantly, small children would have access to not only boobies, but who-knows-what-else. There are PUH-LENTY of places to view that stuff already; so it isn't like Apple was denying anything in a real sense; they just didn't want THEIR store to become "seedy", which, if you saw how many STUPID "booby" apps there WERE, was actually happening. Before Apple kicked the sex stuff to the curb, it was actually getting QUITE difficult to find LEGIT apps, because the App Store had become SO polluted with that stuff, that ANY search result would return TONS of sex apps, which you would have to wade through to find what you REALLY wanted. Ask nearly any early iPhone owner. It was really getting stupid.
2. You opined that Apple could "open up IOS a bit more" and nothing bad would happen. Well, first off, you don't QUALIFY "Open up iOS" really means; so that is pretty difficult to "address". And you don't QUANTIFY what "a bit more" is; so that is impossible to "address". Nonetheless, I did my best to explain WHY Apple's decision, even if you happen to disagree with it, was a sound one for the vast majority (and that's all ANYONE can try to satisfy) of iOS users. The fact that that chafes against a REALLY small minority is simply unavoidable. Apple can only have ONE policy in this regard, and so they have no choice but to try and make that policy workable for most of their actual, and potential, iOS users. And my original reply more-than-adequately "addressed" why, in my OPINION, I thought that Apple had done exactly the right thing, overall.
Any more "addressing" of your "points" will simply have to wait until you deign to favor us wth a more compelling argument than "I think that Apple can change this"; which is all you have actually done. There is no "because" in your arguments. How does anyone "address" a simple PRONOUNCEMENT? And yet, I have done so. Twice now.
So, perhaps, if you don't understand at this point, you'll just have to STAY "confounded".
You are being retarded. I never claimed anyone should be like me and I'm comfortable being in an audience of less than 2,000 people worldwide.
As for the others...
- tvout: standard definition on iPhone, 720p on my phone; compatible with any hdmi device, app
Ok; but since the iPad 2 does HDMI out now, I would be very surprised if the iPhone 5 won't, too.
- samba: fair enough, same with android market, but kernel support is obviously superior
Meh. Since most people won't be doing large file-transfers from/to their phone, I think that a userland implementation is fine, thank you.
- enc-fs: I have an ecryptfs partition on my sdcard accessible via Root Explorer / ConnectBot
I DO think that is cool...
- iptables: certainly counts, wouldn't trust or use android without it
In my research, I found that, although there isn't kernel support for iptables in iOS, there are some OpenBSD userland pf tools floating around in iOS that could be pressed into service.
- strace: critical for debugging root apps
which you probably shouldn't even be installing and running on something like a phone anyway...b
- gcc: it's fun to compile C progs on my phone but this is vain I admit
Ya think? ;-)
I don't really understand your complaints about rooting since it would be the very first thing I'd do to an iPhone as well.
I'm sure you would. But here's my boggle with that:
br> The only way that the iOS platform can retain its stellar track-record of no working exploits in the wild (yes, I know there have been like 2, but those have been patched long ago, and besides, the number is nothing like what Android has been experiencing. And I haven't been following WP7 closely enough to comment on that platform) is to be UN-Jailbroken.
Tell me how to get tv-out, iptables, strace, encrypted-fs, nfs, samba, sshd, and gcc working on the iPhone and I might consider it.
Until then it's you who doesn't get it. I don't want a simple phone.
First, despite what your WANT, it's a PHONE. It is you that is at the extreme edge of the bell-curve of smartphone users. You understand that at least, don't you?
.05% (or lower) of smartphone users, even Android users, THINK they need an entire desktop or server OS and development toolchain running on every single device, from your toaster to your TV.
Contrary to your asinine requirements, I would be absolutely shocked to find that more than
Honest. It's ok to have devices that "merely" EXECUTE code.
So, with that out of the way, let's talk about a few of your more reasonable requests... Keep in mind that I have restricted these solutions to those available to a NON-Jailbroken iOS device. And, to be fair, I have also searched against non-rooted Android capabilites (since that's only fair).
As for tv-out? Is that some *NIX util of which I am unaware? Because if it is Television Output you want, that's officially supported.
Samba? There's an app for that! Not free ($16), but, from the description, it seems pretty cool. Therre might be others, but I stopped when I found EZShare Pro. There is a free version called EZShare Files, too. If I read the product info correctly, it also more-or-less has an ssh server included. Of cousr, Samba on Android requires a rooted device, so it isn't really available to Android users, either.
encrypted-fs? Doesn't seem to be available on iPhone. Work on that on Android is just getting started; so you can't have that on Android yet, either.
Similarly, strace, iptables and gcc would require a rooted Android; therefore they don't count for the purposes of this discussion, either.
So, unless you want to change the rules, it really doesn't look like a non-rooted Android is any more useful to you than a non-Jailbroken (rooted) iPhone.
Computers and phones are different but I will take MS's record for updates over Apples any day.
Are you SURE you want to stick with that statement? I'm not sure you'll find much support for that position even on Apple-hating Slashdot.
In the end all you really need for Android is the ADB binary and an app which roots the phone for you. After updating the recovery partition then it's as simple as pressing two buttons to upload the update zip.
Wow! You DO realize, don't you, that even a pretty damn tech-savvy Android user (not talking about a developer; just a decidedly non-n00b user) would process most of those instructions as "noise", right?
Don't get me wrong--I have no problem with Apple saying "Hey, you don't get any of the cool new features of iOS 4.3 on your iPhone 3G." I think it's a little tacky, but I can understand that the hardware may not be able to deal with it.
So which is it? You think it's a little tacky (implying that Apple is somehow deliberately slighting users of old hardware, to force the purchase of a new phone); OR do you Understand that the hardware may not be able to deal with it? (implying that you realize that Apple can't do impossible things any more than anyone else can)
They are pretty much mutually-exclusive positions.
So maybe it's time for software companies to support these things for a bit longer than 2 years...
Maybe so; but as we all know, "high-tech" devices "evolve" particularly fast compared to your Audi's internals; so it is far more likely that it becomes simply impractical to support the older hardware far sooner than with a typical car.
Precisely. Carrier OTAs are only good for non-nerds or people who don't care about their phone. Everyone else just roots it (if they can*) and installs whatever they want.
* Even bootloader-locked phones like Motorola's can usually have the entire Android platform stack recompiled from compatible-AOSP and flashed after rooting.
Typical Android. You guys really just don't get it, do you?
True, but...have you seen what they put on dildos? Clearly, spines do have some kind of appeal.
Oh, you mean those ones that look kinda like a Barrel Cactus?
;-P
LOL, I guess you got me there!
you mean "reveal codes"? that was awesome! they simply admitted that the formatting would have bugs and/or get too complicated, and they let you bypass it if you had the chops to edit it directly.
I must admit that I stood in awe as a late attorney friend (RIP) of mine just WHIPPED on that textual formatting stuff in WP5 (IIRC). This was around 1992. I've never seen selecting, cutting and pasting done with such alacrity before or since, in any word processing environment.
But it was always about 6 levels of too arcane for me, since by that time, I'd already been using WYSIWIG word processing on the Lisa, and then the Mac for about eight years, since LisaWrite (then MacWrite, then Microsoft Word for Mac) early 1984.
I might appreciate the walled garden a little more... if I didn't have an iPhone 3G on my desk. It is only JUST out of its two-year service agreement with AT&T. I'm sure there are other people who bought new 3G phones who are still under contract but out of support.
What phone am I going to get next? Well, I crossed iPhone 4 off the list already, so I'll probably get an Android device and reconsider Apple when the iPhone 5 or 6 comes out.
Which is likely to be in the not-too-distant future...
While I agree to some extent, the choice shouldn't have to be between incompetence and a walled garden.
There's a lot of things that "shouldn't have to be"; but are.
It would drive the carriers insane, but Apple could open up iOS a bit more without causing compatibility problems between apps and OS versions.
In your (not-so) humble opinion, of course. And your credentials to be making that bold and sweeping statement?
Since the Curated Collection seems to be working just-a fine for all but a fairly small minority of the smartphone-buying (and using) public, and the number of iOS exploits in the wild even without the security patches has been in the (low) single-digits, I think Apple has really got a handle on this "post-PC" paradigm (and no, that DOESN'T mean only CONSUMPTION) so far ahead of everyone else, that it really isn't even in the same orbit.
The iPhone 3G seems to be the last of the "first generation" of iPhone hardware. I would bet that the versions have diverged to the point that it is getting impractical to support the older architecture, without patching larger and larger swaths of OS code. However, I am sure that if a actual new exploit targeting the earlier devices appears in the wild, gets past Apple's Approval process, that a "Security Update" will happen to at least iOS 4.2.
I am sure someone will comment at this point about my username; but with only a couple of exploits in the wild, (which got quickly patched, and one of which involved a Jailbreak process from an app downloaded outside of the iOS App Store) obviously even the previous iOS versions aren't particularly low-hanging fruit.
And considering the "marketshare" that iOS (and its various devices) enjoy, the naysayers (see? I didn't call them "Haters") hardly have that old horse to haul out and beat this time.
Say what you will, but with 250k+ apps for the iPhone, the "Walls" of the "Garden" are, for most users, pretty far away. And since those "Walls" seem to be doing a damn good job of keeping bad guys out, I am willing to cautiously allow Apple to man the gates to the "Walled Garden".
And it's not like you're making a choice about a life-partner; it's a fucking phone, fercrissakes!
Try it, don't like it, choose again.
At some point, the user has to exercise his ultimate freedom to choose. And no amount of RDF can allow the user to inform himself BEFORE choosing.
I played with one for about 1.5 minutes before my friends drug me away. Can't say I'm impressed with it, but then again, I barely had time to play with it at all. Totally unlike istuff and android was about the only impression I got in that short time.
Don't WP7 and Zune MkII (or whatever it's called) share an OS?
If so, it explains some things about the UI.