Will this pull the feature from existing phones?

"Imagine typing a contact's name into a box and have hits in your address book, files and email appear."

Imagine ... the bleeding obvious.

"Google and Samsung are said to be working on releasing a patch for the Nexus' software to address the infringement allegations."

Which makes sense - it would do far more harm to not have the device for sale, and everyone knows which trolls are to blame for the missing functionality.

One question: will this patch remove the functionality from Galaxy Nexuses already bought in the US? That would be particularly creepy.

re:WP7 is still not going to sell because

"Hmm, once upon a time iOS and Anroid were in single-digits too, and Nokia ruled the world. Once upon a time MySPace ruled the social network scene."

Indeed, it seems odd to criticise WP7 on market share, when the much hyped platforms were once like that (and Apple had poor sales initially, with gradual growth; it was only Android that had massive uptake as manufacturers switched to it).

But - whilst Nokia never ruled the world - they were and *still* are the number one mobile company; and their Symbian sales alone outsells all of Apple! Which, given the Nokia support now for WP7 to replace Symbian, makes this all the more interesting.

Any worse than Apple?

I dislike the way phones are sold on marketing rather than ability, but why is this worse than Apple - just look at the vast amount of free hype and advertising they get? In the phone stores, IPhones and even non-phone IPads seem to get prominent advertising more so than other platforms. Why is it bad when MS try to get some marketing muscle too?

At least MS are paying for their marketing - unlike all the "Get this for your IPhone" / hype about Apple's next product in the media; whilst more major platforms like Android and Nokia get ignored.

I agree entirely with the first response. This is how it works for all big companies. Moaning about MS all the time is so 1990s...

"It's the fact that 10 times in the past 30 days, I have been told by various websites they have an app available, only to discover they don't have a WP app."

Sounds like it's those websites you need to complain about. When something is only available for Windows and not OS X, it's not Apple who get the blame, is it. (And at least that's following market share, unlike all the sites who only make apps for 3rd place IPhone.)

"The ongoing relationship/takeover of Nokia would gives them pretty tight control on decent hardware"

Yes - and a big question is how well Nokia can transition the Symbian sales onto extra WP7 sales. Whilst mostly ignored, the fact of the matter is that the market today is Android and Symbian, with Apple in 3rd place. Nokia have done a good job at getting all the important apps (e.g., I can run Swype, unlike Apple users; it's just all the website-wrapper apps that seem to think it's only worth supporting Apple).

I do fear they will mess up the transition - and leaving us with only 2 platforms will give us less choice and innovation, so I don't see why so many people here seem to want that.

"Just go into any PC-World store just after Dell or HP etc have released a new flasgship model and merely suggest that you want a Mac."

PC World seem to act like Apple resellers these days. Last time I was in a store, there was a big illuminated Apple logo, and their website gives special mention to the IPad in the headline. Sad.

Demand still strong...

I've also got to laugh that it's headline news for Apple that they still have demand a mere few months after a whole new release. Way to go! The other phone companies do this as standard...

HTC?

HTC are the top smartphone manufacturer in the US (Q3 2011). So either HTC will rapidly plummet, or this speculation survey should be taken with a pinch of salt. My guess is the latter. Nokia and Samsung consistently outperform Apple in the market, but we only hear about the surveys in the press that make Apple look better.

"for 'most' normal people (i.e. not techies who want to re-rom their toaster) the iPhone is the phone they want "

No, for most people, Android is number one, Symbian is number two - IPhone number three. That's a fact. It's only (some) techies who seem to think that Apple are the thing everyone should have.

Also remember that IPhones are the most expensive on the market - so firstly, comparing them to platforms which include much cheaper phones is misleading. *Of course* people will, on average, "want" the more expensive phone. Whether they actually get it is another matter, and that's what counts.

Similarly, people who have spent on average £500 on a phone are obviously going to be more satisfied than platforms where the average might be £200 or less. How do the platforms fare if we restrict it to comparisons at a given place? (Also you have the RDF effect where people will be happy with Apple no matter what, because they think it's amazing you can do basic things like make a phone call and email, and don't care if it can't do 3G or copy/paste; where as users of other platforms know that phones are capable of more than this, so are disappointed if it doesn't yet have a quad core 4GHz processor.)

"and most of the Android users are looking to switch to iOS."

So if this is really true, we should see Android plummet from it's >50% share, and IPhone rocket from 3rd place to 1st place, within the next few months. Will it happen?

"Samsung did a good job of copying the iPhone"

Samsung were in the business before Apple I believe, Apple did a good (or bad) job of copying Nokia, you might as well say.

From the article: "Nokia, incidentally, scored 23 per cent, putting it on a par with RIM. These two really have some work to do on their handsets."

No, they don't - I love my 5800 just fine. We're just not raving fanatics who think our company invented or "popularised" the smartphone. (Oh wait - Nokia did!) We've heard these doom and gloom surveys for years, yet Nokia are still number one in the mobile market.

Re: Yep ..... nokia are lost....

"The low end will be gobbled up by the cheap Chinese\indian makers, the high end is HTC\Apple\Sammy\LG\RIM not Nokia. and the mid range has gone."

Yeah, that would be why Nokia are still number one, both in phones as a whole, and high end "smart" phones.

Indeed, last time I looked, the share by company was Nokia, LG and Samsung, some company I've never heard of, then Apple. Or by smartphone platform, it was Symbian and Android on top, with RIM and Apple trailing behind. These are the facts - but you wouldn't believe it if you just go by what the media report.

Whether Nokia will perform as well with MS and Windows Phone - who knows. But their track record with Symbian and S40 for the last 10 years has been number one.

Re: Used a Windows phone? (not 6.x) #

"One really wonders what kind of PR magic it needs to convert 100M heavily multitasking, charging every 4 days, restarting only at movie theater userbase to Windows Phone."

Indeed - I love Symbian. Though the sad thing is, there will be no choice to move to anything else, since Android and Iphone are also part of the "charge every day" crowd.

But blame the media, not MS: they're the ones who hyped Apple, and to a lesser extent, Android, whilst either ignoring or doommongering about Nokia and the number one platform of Symbian.

I've even heard Iphone and Android owners spin this as a good thing - "Of course I have to charge every day, it's a smartphone! Obviously your Nokia can't be a smartphone, I didn't know Nokia even made smartphones".

Indeed, blame the Nokia/Symbian trolls in this very thread:

Ian Davies: "And mashing two companies that have both had the chance to produce precisely that, but failed, is going to work how, exactly?"

Ah, being the number one company in the phone and smartphone market counts as failure? If you say so. If you like another phone better, fine, but don't misrepresent opinion as fact.

Doug 3: "If Nokia market share wasn't falling so fast,"

Nokia's market has consistently increased. That their share has fallen is simply a statistical quirk due to there being more phones that are now counted as "smartphones".

Company A sells 1 million units a year, company B sells 1 unit.

A year later, company A sells 1.1 million a year, company B sells 100.

As a result, A's share has fallen. But it would be absurd to say that B was doing better than A; not only is A still increasing sales, it is doing so at a faster rate than B!

Also consider that Apple's share in tablets is falling - but we never hear the media spin it that way. We only hear about absolute figures, when it suits Apple...

Please, the first derivative of market share is meaningless as a method of comparing different companies; look at absolute sales, or first derivative of absolute sales.

strawman

"Er, no... if while doing planking (or any other activity) - which is in-and-of-itself not illegal - you do something illegal in order to achieve it, then there is no "right" for you to turn to. "

Er, how does that contradict what was said here?

Planking isn't the problem (as much as the media would like to scaremonger over), it's doing stupid and/or illegal things. The article didn't say people were defending the right to do illegal things, they were defending the right to do "planking", which as you say yourself, is not illegal. Please let's not join in with the Daily Mail-style "Internet Facebook craze killed this person" scaremongering.

Re: It's half finished, but might be good one day. But gets a good score?!

"How can a tablet possibly justify a 75% rating, when it doesn't offer much in the way of apps and there's no native email even?"

I guess it's the Apple model - it took several generations to add basic things like 3G, video calling, multiasking, even copy/paste and MMS, but the Apple phone still got endless praise.

So I guess the answer is to say "But why would I need email? RIM offer a whole new paradigm of doing things. Though I can't tell you what it is". And then when it's finally offered in version 3, the PlayBook can be hailed as revolutionary, for introducing this wonderful new email functionality...

Re: I am going to disagree with the reg on this one

But if this is something useful, then you can kiss goodbye to ever seeing it now, unless you restrict yourself to buying expensive PCs from Apple. If it's anything like their magnetic power connector patent[*], they won't be licensing it.

[*] Apple invented magnets, don't you see! Nevermind that even a 5 year old puts prior art on their parents' fridge...

Re: Missed oppertunity

"Why no sign of an ARM based one that is not limited to 1-2 hours battery life?"

I get 8-11 hours on my Intel Atom based Samsung N220.

Apple?

So, another news article that is nothing to do with Apple (no more than any other phone or computer manufacturer), but we still have to have the obligitary Apple mention.

(If history is anything to go by, this feature will appear first in other smartphones, perhaps even feature phones, whilst Apple fans say "But why would I want that?" Then later it'll be featured in an Apple phone, and be hailed as revolutionary...)

"But Officer, everyone else was speeding too!"

If app store isn't the generic term for a store that sells apps, what is?

As for Windows, too wrongs don't make a right.

For all the people mentionining Linux - MS *lost* their initial case against Lindows, but then settled out of court to avoid the risk of losing altogether. If Apple want to bring a case against the use of Windows, then they should do so. Chances are, they would win.

But that doesn't given them the right to claim ownership too to parts of the English language.

"But Officer, everyone else was speeding too!"

(Also GatesFanbois makes a good point - whilst MS's trademark is dubious, at least they don't have the cheek to sue people who are using the term "Windows" in its generic computing sense.)

"They could have taken the market by storm if they'd thought of the app store concept back then"

Nokia _did_ take the market by storm - and still are the number one smartphone and phone company. Don't let the media obsession with Apple fool you. (Although yes, it's true - I bet they wish they had thought of the app store idea of palming 30% profit off of software developers. Personally as a developer, I wish no company had thought of this...)

"but there wasn't anything like a uniform app buying experience before Apple introduced their app store. ... or a separate online store for each vendor."

Wrong, there were all kinds of online stores (both free and commercial). And if you mean uniform - well, no, it's not uniform. There's still plenty of stores for each platform; and we have multiple "offical" app stores (Nokia's, Apple's, Google's, RIM's, MS's, etc)

Logos advertising the brand

"From a visit to Google New York, I can say that over half of the laptops I saw in corridors where MacBooks. And a third of the phones where iPhones."

It's very difficult to judge just by looking - remember, Apple are like companies like Addidas in that they plaster their logo over their products. So the few times you see an Apple PC or phone, you notice it, but it's easy to forget the many others that are from other companies.

(Also you have to remember that Apple phone users seem more likely to wave it around all the time, and announce that they're going to check email on their Iphone, as if this was something special - other people just discretely use it. Most of the time, you shouldn't ever see a phone, because it ought to be tucked away in their pocket.)

Surely this can't be?

Wasn't Apple meant to revolutionise the entire industry by getting everyone to use tablets? Last time I looked, the DSG Group was at the head of hyping them - where did the sales go?

Anyhow: for the people hoping they die - what's the alternative? Please don't say the Internet - some of us like buying right now from a shop, or having a look in person, or not having to worry about sending back bulky items that don't work. As bad as their customer service is, someone to talk to is still better than a webpage.

It was better when you had lots of independent computer stores, but they've mostly died out now.

Whilst PC World etc may only seem to care about your average user, they do stock a decent amount of things like motherboards, cases, graphics cards etc, that more mainstream shops won't. There's Maplin, but often their prices are more expensive, and their range limited.

So where else?

"It's all laptops and tablets."

If that were true, why isn't it helping PC World etc, who sell these far more prominently than desktop parts? Hell, their websites even give a product placement advert to "iPad" in their title! Whilst I'd be sorry to see them go, I won't have any sympathy for their jumping on such a bandwagon, if it leads to their demise. Now that PC World have become "Apple World" (seriously - last time I walked into the store, there were even Apple logos on the entrance doors) to a large extent, their problems don't surprise me.

I have a tablet...

It's called a Nokia smartphone. If people are seen using conventional PCs less when they're out, by far the biggest change in the last ten years for mobile computing has come in the form of handheld devices (i.e., tablets) that can also do phone calls. Nokia and now Android are the leaders here, not Apple (unless you redefine the market to only look at the Ipad, which is a circular argument).

Computers that run full OSs (like Windows, Linux) aren't going to go away though. As for netbooks, I suspect their biggest competition is ultra portable laptops (which now offer much more power, at only a slightly bigger size, and only slightly more expensive). Remember, when netbooks appeared, ultra portable laptops didn't really exist, unless you spent a lot of money.

Boring PCs

"i'm also increasingly irritated by the idea that all PCs are boring beige boxes with beige mice and keyboards and screens attached to them"

Indeed, and this is the problem with the Mac view all round - it's 20 years out of date.

The portrayal of PCs being boring machines for business use; as the Microsoft ads pointed out, this claim is ludicrous. (And it's also hypocritical - 20 years ago, Macs were only really used in business machines, and back then, the token Mac fans moaned that home computers like the Amiga was just a "toy", because it wasn't used much in business. I guess the Mac is now a toy...)

As you say, you can get interesting looking PCs that aren't from Apple. But it's better that even you suggest - even for the average PC (yes, even off the shelf in PC World), beige went out of fashion 10 years ago. Most PCs you buy today are black, and look perfectly decent - and indeed, it's actually Apple PCs that stick with the boring beige/white colour.

Then there's the spin of "Macs versus PCs" itself. 20 years ago, it was reasonable to use PC for "IBM compatible", and other machines to not be PCs. But today, Macs _are_ PCs. They use the same hardware. They are compatible. They might not be exactly the same as a 1980 IBM PC, but then neither is any modern PC.

There's also the problem that, in my experience, a Mac user's view of non-Apple PCs is at least 5 years out of date. They'll moan about lack of multitouch pads, or conjure up examples of Windows instability from the Windows 9x days. They're convinced that there's a whole line of features of Apple PC hardware, that no other PC has.

Re: Weird and pointless advert there

"Why do they not mention any reasons to buy a machine running Windows 7 as opposed to anything else - like Mac OSX, Linux or even Windows XP?"

Well, why do Apple equate "PC" with "machine running Windows" - even though "Macs" are just PCs these days?

Blame Apple for the "PC == Windows" idea. Microsoft are just cleverly spinning that round to their advantage.

And when we're considering PCs as opposed to tablets/phones/etc, I don't see why it's strange for Microsoft to promote that. Yes, they might not create the hardware themselves - but they *are* the company with 90+% market share on such products. So *of course* they're going to promote this.

You see this in all sorts of areas. It's in Nokia's interest to see phone use promoted in general, because they are the market leader, and will benefit from an increase of people using phones. It's in Apple's interest to see mp3 playing be advertised, because even if the advert doesn't explicitly mention their Ipods, Apple will still gain sales.

As for the hype about tablets - more people are still using tablets that we more usually call phones (where Nokia are the market leader, not Apple). And netbooks still outsell tablets - and any slowdown in their sales is probably more due to phones (for portability) and ultra-portable laptops (which are now cheap, and much more powerful). Not the Ipad. Apple are not the market leader in any category here, unless you handpick the category of "devices that are exactly like the Ipad".

@Anonymous Coward: "Windows 7 of today isn't really any different from the Windows 95"

You must have been using a cool version of Windows 95. The version I and everyone else saw was a joke. (Yes, they look the same in that they both have GUIs and icons, but then by that logic, no platform has changed - including anything from Apple, both for OS X and IOS).

Re: relax...

"Many, many, many, many news sites use the word "iPhone" as a generic term for smartphones."

Which is still just as stupid. Are we going to start referring to computers as "Macs"? Or maybe we should refer to cameras as Quicktakes, or mp3 players as Zunes?

At least with say the Ipod for mp3 players, it's the market leader, but Apple are way behind in phones. If anything, we should be referring to Nokia phones (who are the market leader, both in phones, and in the ill-defined "smartphone" category - can you give me a definition of smartphone that includes the original Iphone, but doesn't include most feature phones?).

As for "relax" I see nothing about the OP that suggested he was angry. He was just pointing out a basic fact: there's no need to add an advertisement for Apple, when the story has nothing to do with them (although at least for once, it's a negative advert).

We already have a word for these kinds of devices - it's called a phone. What's wrong with that?

Apple?

For heaven's sake, this is a news article about Intel. Why the obligitary Apple product placement?

Yes, you can use processors in products made by Apple. The same applies to Dell, Asus, Nokia, and plenty of other companies that sell as much or more than Apple - do they not get a special mention everytime there's an article about processors?

ARM processors ship something like a billion processors a years on phones. Apple are number 5, companies like Nokia sell ten times as many. If and when those companies start switching to Intel, will be the more news.

And Intel already powers tablet/netbook sized devices, so that you could power an Ipad with an Intel processor isn't news.

they're smartphones?

"smartphones (including the iPhone and Android handsets)"

Ah yes, just in case anyone had missed news about iPhones and Androids. It's rare to hear about them, what with all the constant coverage about Nokia (which is actually the company that ships most phones and smartphones with ARM processors in).

three days

"Within three days, investigators determined that the homeowner had been telling the truth"

Despite the awful ordeal that this must have been (and the disgusting unprofessional comments made during the raid), at least this did get solved in that time.

If this was the UK, based on some of the horror stories, all his Windows computers, tablets, phones would have been confiscated, left lying around for perhaps months, whilst they try to get round it. These days the Internet is becoming a necessity, and it's also required for some people's livelihoods. Same with computers. And mobile phones are the only way many people have to communicate. People still think of these as a "search" warrant, not a "steal" warrant. That's before we consider the stress of waiting for months, worrying if you'll be charged (not to mention that having Internet access is something that would be useful for looking up legal advice and information...)

Not to mention that now that we have laws criminalising all kinds of pictures of legal acts, of cartoons and so on - even if he wasn't guilty, there's a chance they'd still find some kind of image buried in a cache, and try to get him for that instead.

On another note, I'm curious what make and model of desktop PC the man had. I mean we get told he had an Ipad and Iphone, not tablet and phone, so why not the make of desktop? Obviously it can't have been a Mac, because we'd have been told. Seriously, do Apple pay for the product placement?

Good news! Extra efficiency!

Remember all those Apple versus Nokia stories, where Apple are spun as being more "efficient", because they have less R&D people, or spend less on R&D? If that's the case, surely it's a *good* thing, by that logic, if Nokia are reducing on R&D? That they are moving from Symbian to Windows also makes it expected that they would be able to reduce their R&D (just as Apple can use less R&D on their Iphone, by reusing the OS that they have developed for their Ipod, which in term uses Darwin as a kernel).

But as always, anything Apple do gets spun as good, anything Nokia do gets spun as bad, even when it's the same thing...

"Two years ago if someone had said to me "no-one within your social circle will own a Nokia phone" I would have laughed at them. Now it's literally true as far as I know."

Firstly, that might not be true - where as Apple users announce they have an Iphone everytime they use it, and Android users announce it when they get a new phone, my experience is that other people simply don't advertise it. Also note how online, anyone using an Iphone will get this advertised with "Posted via iPhone" etc (on email, Twitter, Facebook etc). This often happens with Android. But it rarely gets advertised on Nokia. (Hell, I've even seen Twitter profiles that have "iPhone" next to some people's username, as if the operating system on their phone was some badge of honour.)

So for all the people where you don't know what phone they have, chances are many of them use Nokia.

And anyhow, forget anecdotes - we can just check the market stats, and see that Nokia are still number one (sell ten times as many as Apple, last time I looked).

Joe Harrison: "Although considering how obsessed they all are currently with their I-phones and Android I wouldn't hold my breath."

Well that's the thing - the people who are obsessed with phones seem to brag about their expensive Iphones. The majority of people who buy and use phones, without getting fanatical about it, are still buying plenty from Nokia. It's no different to the people who brag about their Addidas clothes, that doesn't tell us anything about what most people actually buy.

Can we not get through a single tech article without the obligitary Apple comparison?

I mean, I would criticise comparing tablets to the Ipad, even if it is currently the market leader, on the grounds that articles about Apple's Iphone don't get compared to market leader Nokia, and Apple's Macs don't get compared to market leader Windows.

Yet here we have Windows PCs still being compared to ... Apple.

It's not "MacBook Air" like anymore than it's "laptop PC like".

Re: 9-11

"How about the victims of 9-11?"

I'm sure everyone here agrees that 9/11 was a terrible act.

If you're saying that Guantanamo is also a terrible act, then it seems you're in agreement with people here.

Seriously - what sort of argument is it to justify Gantanamo, by comparing it to 9/11??

Matt Bryant: "The prisoners are not uniformed combatants of a nation we are at war with, so they don't fall under the Geneva Convention."

If the Geneva Convention doesn't apply, then it's either a criminal matter, or straightforward kidnapping. The US doesn't appear to be charging these people, so...

(The point of the Geneva Convention was to give extra rights and protections. It's sad to see people use it to argue the opposite.)

Yes, they don't wear uniforms. Most people in their home country don't. Do you wear a uniform right now? Probably not. Does this mean anyone can legally and rightfully kidnap you, because the Geneva Convention doesn't apply?

Re: Mistake #1

"Releasing the first images of a brand new device and then saying 'but the final thing will probably look different'. When did you last see Apple do that?"

Er, all the time? We get endless stories about rumours and vaporware of the Ipad, Ipad 2, 3, 4, Islate, next Iphone, Iphone 6, where all sorts of things announced are different to the final release, not just the pictures.

Re: Well said sir!

"People bang about PC security this and phone security that, but they will happily have one of those nasty little loyalty cards from TESCO or Sainsbury's and always blindingly hand it over!"

Can you prove that the people complaining about the Iphone's security, are people who also hand all their data to Tesco?

(Also, show me a Tesco card that tracks my movements.)

The Apple defence?

Well, I think no email is bit poor. But they could always use the Apple defence when a basic feature like copy/paste, MMS, Flash or video is missing: "But why would I need that?" and "But there are other ways of doing that. Apple, sorry, RIM have a whole new paradigm of doing this. So in fact, by not having this feature, it's better!"

"Meanwhile, there's another slightly larger device thats already sold 30-40 MILLION units"

Indeed, Android is looking better.

But since when does market share really matter? For phones, you don't see Apple fans worrying about the far bigger sellers of Nokia and Android, or the fact that Nokia and RIM were around years before Apple entered late.

As for "plenty of apps", well, remind me again what Apple fans say regarding software for Mac versus Windows on the desktop?

I'm no fan of this device from RIM. But I do think it funny that we hear all these reasons to promote the Ipad, despite the fact that in every other market Apple's in, Apple fans argue the complete opposite. Suddenly things like market share, who was in the market first, features or apps, no longer matter. Which is it?

(Incidentally, RIM have sold far more than 30-40 million handheld computing devices, far more than Apple probably. This is just one of their new products.)

Didn't we already have an article yesterday?

Oh wait. That was the Iphone 6. Or was it Iphone 7?

Let's drop the daily vaporware stories. Are we going to have endless stories on how Nokia, Samsung, Dell, Asus etc may be releasing a newer version of their products, that will be slightly better than the current versions, too?

uhuznaa: Good battery life? Does it last more than a day, now? ;)

I'm still happy with my old Nokia 5800 - battery life last for days, and a higher resolution and better camera I believe than the contempary Iphone of the same era.

There isn't really much to distinguish phones these days, and whatever thing you like about Apple, there'll be people liking things about Nokia, Android manufacturers, RIM and so on.

"The current crop of Android phones is not exactly making leaps."

Nor are Apple. All phones these days are getting pretty similar, and the improvements are evolutionary. Most of the new things added in each Iphone generation were just playing catchup: 3G, video recording, video calling, multitasking, decent resolution. In some cases, even bog standard feature phones had these features years earlier, yet for Apple, they were touted as the main new features. Not exactly making leaps - please correct me if I'm wrong?

re: smart move

"Although Apple's share of the smartphone handset market, isn't likely to rise - e.g. increase by 2% in the next four years, it'll be flogging 400% more phones."

No, Android outsells Apple IOS by a factor of two, that's before we look at growth.

(And it's funny how you appeal to absolute sales rather than market share changes for Apple, yet it's always the reverse when people criticise Nokia: there we've had years of moaning because they no longer dominate the market quite as much, but it's rarely pointed out that they're still number one - and in fact, still with increasing sales.)

"In one quarter last year, half the profits of the entire smartphone industry was Apple's."

So Apple sell more expensive products and make more money. Why should consumers care about that?

Imagine that in the old Mac versus Windows debates? "Oh, it doesn't matter that you think Mac is better - just look at how much money Microsoft have!" Doesn't really work, does it?

Yes, Apple make lots of money by selling expensive products to a niche. I don't think anyone disputes that - it's just most of us prefer something else.

Seems fitting

A wedding that many of us don't care about.

An app only for platforms that most of us don't run.

(Well, at least they included Android, but once again, we see 3rd place Apple being catered for, whilst market leader Nokia gets ignored. Next.)

Resolution

The idea that resolution matters for the Iphone is a bit of a myth - for years, the Iphones had a dismal resolution, lower than the competition. Did Apple fans say this was a problem, or say other phones had better resolution? No, it was "Why would I need a higher resolution?" Yet along comes version 4, and suddenly having a high resolution is the most important thing in a phone.

Iphone 5? 6? 7? "New version in a few years will be better than current versions, and might implement some things that other phones already do"? All these articles are vaporware - let's hear about products that are actually available.

"yet another dull as dishwater Android handset from Samsung/LG/HTC etc etc."

Can you point me to the endless vaporware articles we get regarding speculation on future Samsung/LG/HTC products?

(Although yes, I do agree I tire of the Android versus Apple fanaticism. Most of us use neither operating system, and to me, all OSs are as good or bad as each other; it's other things like hardware, battery life, application support that are important. E.g., can either Android or Apple offer me decent mapping software that doesn't require Internet access all the time to read the maps?)

desktops; not just Google and Apple

Both of them look like the standard icon based displays that's been common on desktops for decades. And this is nothing new on mobile devices - my Nokia 5800 looks just the same, and predates both those phones.

"It's almost too obvious to point out that this lawsuit is yet another volley in the smartphone OS wars – a conflict that currently is being fought almost solely by Apple and Google, with Microsoft's Windows Phone involved in only a skirmish or three while it keeps its powder dry until Nokia phones based on Redmond's OS offering begin to appear, supposedly next year.

"Oh yes, and there's HP/Palm's webOS, of course, but it hasn't proven to be a threat in the smartphone market. RIM's BlackBerry OS seems to be stuck in its own niche."

Oh, and you forgot Nokia, who are only like number one, outselling Apple two to one (ten to one in phones - "smartphone" isn't well defined), and sell as much as all Android manufacturers put together. But yes, apart from that minor point, it's just Google and Apple.

(Unless you mean fights, but there have been patent wars between Nokia and Apple too.)

Re: as engadget, they are missing something

"but lets not ignore the ignorance of engadget or any US site regarding anything non Apple or Google."

Indeed - we should remember in general, it's hard to trust any reviewer when it comes to operating systems. If a site claimed that they'd done a review, that OS X was better than Windows, does it mean that that must be true? Or what about the reverse?

There's so much fanaticism in operating systems, even more so for phone OSs, that anything should be taken with a pinch of salt. On top of that, you've got the problem that most of the media seem to hate Nokia and love Apple (especially in the US, where Nokia have little presence, but it spreads worldwide too where Nokia are number 1).

Personally I find the Nokia 5800 browser just fine, but also have Opera too. If I had any phone, I'd still want to use Opera - so I'm glad I'm using a phone that lets me do that.

Whenever the Iphone misses a feature, it's "Why would I want to do that? There's another way to do it." Well, why not apply the same logic for Nokia? If you expect a "decent browser", well maybe I expect "decent multitasking, 3G, copy/paste, Flash, video recording, Java etc" - could I add all those in for free to any Iphone?

chuckc: "if Nokia wants to recover lost ground"

Recover what ground? They're number one, and sales have continually increased. No sales have been lost. The browser is fine. Is Windows doomed, because some people choose to use Firefox instead of IE, and think it better?

Five Hats: Good for you. I wouldn't consider phones from Apple. Different people like different phones.

boring?

"Specifically, your work phone will generally be a boring one: no lovely iPhone or Droid for you. Instead that badge of infamy, that infallible mark of boring corporate suitdom – the BlackBerry "

I bet you think the "PC vs Mac" ads that portrayed PCs as "boring" were good too.

I see loads of people using and having fun with Blackberrys, and I'd much rather have that than a corporate Apple phone. The claim makes no sense anyway: if Apple became the business work phone you'd be issued with, then Apple would become the "mark of boring corportae suitdom".

You can't have it both ways, and ridicule Blackberry for its association with business, but then praisr the Iphone or Ipad everytime a company considers it! By your own logic, the use of Ipads in business should mean they are now boring work devices.

I'm surprised you didn't sneak in a dig against Nokia there - your standards are slipping.

See?

See how the fans want to thumb my comment down?

Any old phone can do Internet access/apps these days, I'm not sure why that was a controversial comment. The "You need an expensive smartphone to do that" is one of the new tech myths around.

Specials were awful

Actually, whilst people often moan about the later series, I don't think it was all that bad. I loved the episode "Beyond a joke", as well as the three-parter of series 8. Even though it wasn't consistently as good as the earlier series, I'd still rather see more of that, than nothing at all.

But it's the 2009 specials that were dire. I think I smiled once during the entire thing. Some parts I just cringed at - the mocking of the stereotypical fan, where he recites the joke about Rimmer quoting from the regulations book; except it's not funny when people do that. And I try to forget the dire Coronation Street tie in...

Ordinary people already have smartphones

Just not one with an expensive Apple logo. Since over 5 years ago, phones doing Internet, mp3s, 3G and apps (and video recording/calling/playback, btw) became cheap and bog standard. It's the Iphone that had to do catchup on many of these basic features.

It is true that some Iphone users wave it around as a status symbol, it's like the Adidas of phones; personally I prefer clothes (and phones) without a big logo on them.

I was once in the pub, and two strangers interrupted a conversation on phones I was having, to say in a snooty voice "Oh, we've got Iphones. Look at how shiny and sexy it is. We don't care about open source operating systems". I mean, what the hell?