Posts by Mark .
1281 posts • joined Thursday 18th June 2009 13:17 GMT
Re: Why not a tablet?
Well yes I have nothing against hybrids - you get the best of both worlds with a device that has a stand and keyboard, but can also be a pure tablet too. Though as I say in my original comment, a lot of the tablet stand/keyboard add ons don't work very well at all on a lap, as far as I can tell. There are hybrids that do work better (ASUS Transformer style ones), but then those are as much laptops as they are tablets.
Even with those hybrids, there do seem to be compromises - whilst the tablet-only part is lighter than an ultra-portable laptop, the combination of tablet and keyboard is usually slightly heavier (I think because being a tablet makes it top heavy, so you need the extra weight in the keyboard to make it work right in laptop mode).
And yes, fair point about handwriting recognition with a stylus - I've yet to try this, so if it works well, it's good to hear (though, even if it's perfect, I can still type much faster than I write...)
Re: Ah....oh dear....
Whilst some of those are true, it's not entirely fair:
"No need for AV."
Neither on Linux, and Windows 8 has it built it (and if it's like Security Essentials, it never bothers you anyway - it was only the stuff like AVG that constantly pesters you).
"Take the Chromebook out of the box and within 10 seconds of switch on you are up and running."
It's quick as things go - though I note my Windows laptop boots quicker than my Android Galaxy Nexus. Most laptops are slow because of the terrible slow hard disks, not the OS - they do much better with SSD.
"If you mess it up you just reset it and log in again."
Most Windows laptops offer this, though personally I dislike it, I'd rather fix things without having to have the only option as "reset everything to default".
"Hardly any settings to mess around with."
I'm not sure I've ever had to mess around with a setting on any recent OS.
"No need to learn CLI or other such dark arts."
What is this, the 1980s? I've not *had* to on other OSs.
"No worries about backups."
So it does an offline backup automatically, does it?
Yes, it's true that storing on Google is more reliable than the average person's hard disk, but this is not a *back up*. And it's not clear to me that managing an offline backup of Google is easier than the backup solutions for other OSs?
"No need to call in the IT chappie/son to fix it."
The laptop is physically indestructable? Most of my parents' IT queries are about Internet/browser related stuff, which would still apply.
"Oh and it costs £200"
Yes they finally got the price right - it made no sense when they cost more than a similarly specced laptop even with the Windows licence fee. Though note there are other low cost laptops too (and not just netbooks).
Re: To sum up the benefits: They are cheap
Nitpick: The Ativ 500 (and all current x86 Atom tablets) use Clover Trail (which isn't that old, it's the current generation). Cedar Trial was the older one.
Re: Why not a tablet?
Well I don't see any need for an ipad, I can do posting on my Samsung N220. They've been overtaken by (better) tech. If I just want a touchscreen device, I have one that fits in my pocket.
(What make of laptops and servers do you have? I mean, it's so important to mention iPad by name...)
Re: Why not a tablet?
If I'm watching media, a laptop sits on my lap or a desk, angled perfectly. A tablet either lies flat, or you have to hold it the entire time. Or you spend extra on a stand, basically trying to turn it into a laptop, except one that only works on desks and not laps.
If I'm web browsing, that means typing too, which a touchscreen is a right pain for anything except trivial short Twitter-like material. You can spend extra on a keyboard, basically trying to turn it into a laptop, except one that only works on desks and not laps.
What advantage does a tablet have? Touchscreens have their uses, though most of the time on a 10" device or larger, I'd rather a touchpad (the thing about phones/smaller tablets is that your hand is the same size as the device, and a touchpad would be no point, as it'd be the same size as the display - on a large screen, you're having to move your hand the entire distance as a display, which is more time and effort than moving a finger across a small touchpad). A laptop with a touchscreen would be the best of both worlds, but with a choice of only one or the other, I'd rather a laptop, even when I'm just using the web or watching videos.
"I have a laptop and a tablet."
So if you're going somewhere, you have to decide if you're going to work or do web/media, or lug both around? If you're web browsing, and decide to type something, do you then have to get your laptop out?
Also as far as start menu/screens go (which they change in almost every version of Windows - 8 is nothing new), I'd have to say that XP is my least favourite - oddly the version that Windows 8 critics now uphold as the best version of Windows (even though geeks hated it at the time, compared to 2000).
People who haven't used Windows in a while may not realise that the "classic" start menu of navigating through menus went away with 2000, though you could reenable it as an option in XP. With that version, keeping the menu to the corner made sense, as the menu would open up across the entire screen, as you went into submenus.
The XP way was to scroll through a long list of programs, in my opinion a step backwards, and also meant the menu was now stuck in a small area of the screen, wasting most of the screen space. In 7 (or possibly Vista), the start menu was made better by making it so you could also launch by typing in the application name. Windows 8 keeps that, but replaces "scroll through a list of names" with "scroll through a list of icons and names", and also makes it so that it uses the full area of your monitor again. But for some reason, these last changes are treated as if it was the worst thing that anyone had ever done. It also has nothing to do with touchscreens (since you can just use the mouse as before, and obviously the method of typing the name is optimised for keyboards). Perhaps there is the argument that you now need to move the mouse further, but then that applied to the classic start menu too, and I don't recall people complaining then (though perhaps this was why they changed it with XP?)
If people prefer scrolling through submenus rather than a big list, then XP, Vista, 7 are as bad as 8. If people don't like it taking up more than a small screen area, then the "classic" menu was as bad as 8 now is.
But yes, if people don't like it, they can change it back anyway.
Re: 1080p _is_ low resolution
It's a problem with lower resolutions, but I'd say 1080 is good for vertical resolution. And the wider screen is a help too, e.g., being able to view and compare things side by side.
The problem is when we went from say, 1280x1024 to 1280x800, and your "wider" screen actually meant chopping off the vertical resolution. But 1920x1080 is a step up imo. I'm not sure that say, 1600x1296 would be better.
Re: @AndyS - Lets see if this self-fulfills
It doesn't have to be polarised between "locked down and easy to use" and "open and hard to use" - you don't have to know how it works to use Linux or Windows - or indeed, Android, which is far more popular than ios. (Plus the people I know with Macs seem to like them because they have Unix shells, hardly the "easy to use" argument...)
Re: I love these posts about how it will never take off.
Linux the kernel has certainly taken off. GNU/Linux the operating system is not so widespread. (Not a criticism - just noting the difference, most "Linux" users/advocates are concerned with GNU/Linux, and we only get into this confusion because of the same name applying to the kernel and the operating system. Maybe RMS had a point after all with saying it should be "GNU/Linux"...)
Re: Really bugs me
"but it didn't work out that way."
He was talking about Symbian, not Psion. And with Symbian going onto be the dominant smartphone platform for years, until 2011, outselling iphone for its lifetime, I'd say it did work out that way. Or if what's important to you is who wins in the long run, well that's Android.
Re: Really bugs me
Yes - perhaps one could excuse the iphone-focus from the US media (since they are a US company, and since phone technology lagged behind the rest of the world, so a phone that did Internet but not apps may have seemed new to them), but it's a bit sad from the UK media (and I'm glad it's not just me who noticed that about the BBC's Rory...)
This also seems an attempt to humanise a certain large company by trying to turn unknown people into celebrities, yet for every other company, we have no idea who the CEOs, inventors or designers are. Reminds me when Jobs died, and you had people saying things like "Oh, he genuinely cared about making products, other companies just want to make money" - aside from the ludicrous nature of the claim, you have the subtle comparison of a person, to companies. Sad really - there are people behind those other companies too.
They already have product placement in every virtually single US TV programme in the last few years (seriously - the only exceptions seem to be genres that aren't set near the present day, e.g., fantasy, sci-fi, historical), whilst seemingly every other advert advertises an app, Sky casino, or Sky TV for fishermen, for iphones (when Android is most popular by far). You'd think we could have a break from it occasionally. (Meanwhile, when someone like Nokia dares to advertise its products, that you see about once a week rather than once every 30 seconds, you get people moaning about how it's having to spend loads on advertising...)
Other Hardware Manufacturers?
I've wondered if we'll start to see more hardware manufacturers - the thing in common with Google, MS and Apple is that they all make operating systems, but I don't really see that as being a big reason to have your own shops (sorry, I'm English, I call them "shops":)) The point about Apple is that they make hardware.
Firstly it acts as a big advert - whilst I wouldn't touch an Apple shop with a bargepole, I note that if say I was looking for computer hardware, I'd happily include the Sony shop on my list of shops to visit. Not because I was a Sony fan, but I'd check out what they had to offer. So companies like Sony and Apple have a huge advantage - an extra place to show/sell their products, without competition.
(I also think this is distinct from kiosks or "pop ups", like Samsung and often MS do, and Google have done - psychologically, I see a kiosk and instinctively see it as an advert for a single product, and avoid it - even though logically I know the same is true of shops that only sell their own products, it's easy to see them as just another shop.)
Secondly, we're witnessing the problem of many shops disappearing - independent computer shops mostly disappeared, and now larger shops struggling. The sad thing is that the only places selling computer hardware in the Cambridge town centre is Maplin (don't sell complete systems), the Apple shop, and John Lewis (who seem to give Apple undue attention anyway).
Whilst many people are buying online, it's still useful to check out a product in person. If I look at a product in John Lewis, and buy online elsewere, they lose out. If I check out a Samsung product in their shop, and then buy that product elsewhere, Samsung still win.
Plus there are the advantages of being able to take it back for repair (or in Apple's case, have them tell you you need to pay for a replacement, even though you already also paid for the extra insurance).
At least, I seriously hope that we'll start to see more shops!
Re: Chromebooks are turds
"Apple stores and now Google stores? do they not have a single original idea? I thought they were the champions of online business. "
The thing that makes me laugh is all the "iphone app store" and "itunes" gift cards Apple have now littered across every shop in the UK. So you can buy online by first walking into a shop, then going home again, and buying it - it's so Apple.
Re: Now if you could replace the onboard OS on a Chromebook...
Note you can still get other laptops that are cheap and in the 11-12" range, like Chromebooks. Battery life is perhaps harder, but a quick Google finds for example the ACER Aspire One 725 quoted at 5 hours, at £250 (various Chromebooks are listed at ranging from 4 to over 6.5 hours). The key thing about netbooks was having them at 10" or less, and with really long battery life (my Samsung N220+ easily does 8, quoted at 11) - if you're happy with less battery and 11", there's still a lot of choice left.
Though I do agree that the Chromebooks do look good choices hardware wise, and it would be good to have more choice of OS. I agree about having the physical shops - with all these tablets and hybrids appearing, one thing that's really important is to try out how it feels. With laptops, it's important to try out how the keyboard and touchpad feels.
Re: What if Android did not exist…?
"If Android didn't exist, then iOS would probably still have a majority of the market."
IOS never had a majority of the market. Although I agree with the rest of your statement - I'm glad something like Android did win :)
Dominant is Android - not a duopoly
I do get annoyed at this constant myth of putting iphone on the same level as Android. The breakdown is Android at 70%, iphone at 20%. That's Android dominant, with everything else making up the remainder.
Also note that Q4 results are always better for iphone, shortly after a new release - more generally, it's more like Andoid 75%, iphone 15%. Consider that the gap between smaller platforms like BlackBerry and iphone is *smaller* than the gap between iphone and Android, either by proportion or absolute numbers. It's playing the classic trick of "let's only count platforms that only sell at least as much as Apple" (when Apple was 3rd, 4th, 5th place it was still acknowledged in the list of important platforms; look at mp3 players, and the media will say how it's only Apple that are dominant, and 2nd place is ignored; look at desktops, and all we hear is the "Windows and Mac duopoly" - but you can bet they'd still include Apple if ChromeOS overtakes them...)
It's particularly annoying that we never heard these kind of stories all the years that Symbian was number one (as late as 2011). We never heard stories about the "duopoly" of Symbian and Android, instead the media just went on about iphone, or perhaps iphone and Android, all the time.
The smartphone market was dominated by Symbian, then Android and Symbian, and now Android. Not "Android and iphone".
Plus there's the whole problem that "smartphone" is completely ill-defined anyway - the IDC ignores Nokia's new low end Asha smartphone platform (which is selling more than WP!) - it makes no sense to not include that, when the original iphone couldn't even run apps, but was counted a "smartphone". The actual mobile market is much bigger. Given the "smartphone" here just means "runs one of an arbitrary set of OSs", it's a bit of a pointless stat to say "This arbitrary set of OSs is dominated by only some of them".
Meanwhile, my arbitrary set which includes S40 and iphone is dominated by S40.
I always thought it a bit suspect having a trademark on such a trivial version of the generic term. I mean, can I have a trademark on "pHoNe", with that capitalisation?
(Note, I'm not saying generic terms can't be trademarked - e.g., nothing wrong having a company name of "Apple", so long as they don't sell actual apples.)
It leads to problems such as, would it be infringing if someone made a jPhone? Or who owns the rights to an iTV? The other problem is that other people may also independently have wanted to make trivial variations to the generic term, but are now prevented from doing so - a trademark should be one a term that people are unlikely to use in that context, unless they're clearly ripping them off.
I would say I wonder why no one's made an "itablet" just to annoy them, though a quick Google finds pages suggesting these do exist (and also throwing up pages from 2009/2010 from the media hyping Apple's then alleged product, even before it was originally announced - one from the Telegraph saying how it'll change our lives, well sorry, it's 2013 and I'm still waiting).
Re: Apps store
Given that Symbian outsold IOS during its lifetime (and outsold Android for most of it - number 1 until 2011), it can't be a case of "people the world over still want access to the AppStore and Google Play". And most people are wanting Android anyway - with its 75% and growing, all other platforms are pretty niche.
Re: @ThomH
"If you talk to average non technical people, you'll find you're mistaken. The article is correct, most people don't really know what "Android" is"
You've missed the point he's making. Sure, most people don't know what "Android" is, but it could still be that they buy it because of Android, even if they don't know the name.
If they like the way it works, the applications, or whatever else, and those are part of Android rather than TouchWiz, then it's Android. Just like Apple users might say they like features, that are part of IOS, even if they don't know what IOS is.
It's easy to think that people should just carry on buying Samsung phones - but look how that worked for Nokia. It was surely the case that most people saw them as "Nokia smartphones", with the name "Symbian" having far less brand awareness than "Android", yet we've seen hardly any of the vast Symbian sales carry over into the WP sales.
As for developer support - well, it would make sense to support Samsung no matter what the language. But that doesn't mean people do - support seems to have little in common with market share (consider that iphone always gets supported before anything else, despite never having been number one; and Symbian was last to get any support, despite being number one as late as 2011).
Re: I tend to agree
For a 7" tablet this is true - but for a 10" tablet, I'd still prefer an ultra-portable laptop even for those tasks. Barely any bigger, but it sits on my lap, rather than me having to constantly hold it in both hands (and awkwardly use it at the same time too), or lay it down flat, and strain my neck awkwardly. Checking emails and browsing often involves having to type (replying/writing emails, commenting on articles, even something mundane like Facebook involves updating and commenting), which a laptop keyboard makes far easier.
Not that they don't have some uses (e.g., useful if you need a device when walking around, like in some work environments), but almost all uses of 10" tablets that I actually see, for me are less efficient or useful than the alternatives. But then, most of the people I know use them talk about how it's much better than their desktop PC, so they seem to be people only impressed because they missed the whole idea of ultra-portable laptops/netbooks. (Perhaps similar to the way that the people impressed by the original Apple phone were those who had only owned dumb phones before.)
Re: As with desktops
Indeed. I'm wondering if we're now going to see doom and gloom from the media of "The mobile phone is dead! No one wants mobile phones anymore! Mobile phones face cometition from new Smart TVs! Apple's new OS can't halt decline of mobile phone industry!" Or maybe they might realise that, as with PCs, it's just market saturation, combined with there not being a great economic climate right now.
(And as for the article, distinguishing between "feature" and "smart" phone is a bit pointless, as they're just different ways of marketing, with no objective difference - separating out dumb phones might make more sense.)
Firstly you may want to check your use of "literally" :) From http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html , Android 4.0+ share is 42.6%.
Though iphone users tell me that Apple disable features that don't run on old phones, but still call it the latest OS version.
Android takes the route of not giving OS updates at all for older phones that can't handle it.
Windows Phones takes the same route as Apple, but labels the cut-down version for older phones with a different name (7.8 rather than 8).
It's just different ways of dealing with the same thing, really. And to be honest, I think it's bad when older hardware that used to work fine suddenly gets bogged down trying to run the latest software.
As for not many running 4.2, remember that most phones don't run vanilla Android - it's unreasonable to expect Samsung to have updated their TouchWiz OS, fully tested it, and so on, shortly after the Android 4.2 update coming out. (And if you're someone who doesn't care about TouchWiz etc, then get a Nexus phone.) Also on Android, updates have to go through the networks - I used to think this was annoying, but yesterday's news about IOS updates jamming the network, hurting not only those users but others too, shows why actually it's a good thing after all. I don't mind waiting for an update a bit, if it means it's tested for both my use and others.
Re: This looks like a solution in search of a problem
Indeed. Though perhaps it's technically correct if you read it as allowing _Java_ developers to be able to write cross-platform apps for the first time :) (Which is a bit sad given that Java was meant to be write once run anywhere - we have desktop-Java, Java-for-mobiles-except-Android-and-iphone, and Android-Java. JavaFX would at last be cross-platform between non-mobile OSs, and a couple of mobile OSs at least. Although still not as cross-platform as C++...)
Re: The real reason
But if the problem is that IOS updates are rushed out ASAP to get a "Everyone runs the latest version of IOS, but Android users are left waiting" headline, then that's still a reasonable criticism of Apple's method. Android updates could have bugs, sure, but the point is they go through the networks.
What with this and the IOS maps fiasco, can people stop complaining about slow updates on Android - there's a benefit to testing, and going through the network operators.
Re: Flexible glass is the wet dream of the tech press
"No one saw the iPhone coming or the iPad for that matter"
There was vast amounts of media hype before the iphone release. There was vast amounts of media hype even before the ipad was announced - remember "islate"?
For the rest of your comment - go get a Pebble or whatever.
Re: The "new hotness"?
Or rather, the media are good at doing it - the hype for the ipad started before it was even announced, let alone released. Meanwhile Android tablets (some of which appeared in 2009) were ignored until recently. No doubt we'll see the same thing here, where the media give vast amount of coverage for some iwatch, whilst the earlier Android models are completely ignored. People will buy it just so they can walk around with an Apple logo stapled on their wrist. Meanwhile Casio etc will continue to sell far more watches.
Tablets were mainstream in the 2000s - it's just we didn't call them tablets, we called them names like PDAs, media players and smartphones (they're all handheld touchscreen computing devices - I mean, I was looking at mp3 players in 2009, and at the high end were large devices which ran Android or Windows, and did videos, Internet and apps - i.e., tablets) (the other kind of "tablet" - the laptop PC that was also a tablet - wasn't that mainstream, but then the ipad wasn't one of those anyway).
Re: Not likely called ' iWatch', though.
Casio had better watch it - mine has rounded corners...
Re: resolution up to 2560 by 1700
I have a similar feeling regarding 10" tablets (e.g., Nexus 10's resolution) or 5" phones (Galaxy S4 rumoured to be full HD). For web browsing, there seems little point. For watching videos, you can't even fit a single Blu-Ray quality file into a 16GB device (and streaming would quickly eat up most people's monthly data allowance) so either people watch lower resolution anyway, or have high resolution encoded at low quality which defeats the point. For playing games, there's the issue of the extra strain on the GPU (which are typically far below PC graphics cards) - and I think games on mobile devices are far more restricted by storage space (high end meshes/textures take lots of space, typically these games require about 1GB, so you can't install too many of them - leaving most games to have much simpler graphics).
Meanwhile, laptops designed for productivity get stuck at 1366x768, unless you spend a lot more money...
At least this is a laptop though - maybe Google do intend to push Chrome more into productivity use (albeit with HTML5). Even now, it does support offline applications. Perhaps it'll give a kick to laptop specs in general, for those wanting to run Windows or (GNU)Linux.
Re: Jobs
I'm pretty sure Samsung have outsold Apple for quite a while in mobiles, not just recently - it's unclear if Apple were ever ahead. And Apple were never number one - especially if you're talking the timescales of iphone 1/3G, the sales were lower than Symbian, BlackBerry and even Windows Mobile. Although I agree choosing to litigate rather than innovate is sad.
To be fair
Every other company seems to be doing the same thing these days, obviously having learned from the days when Apple got lots of publicity from it. (Plus if the 128GB version is in more demand, that's a good sign - the fear with these fancy high end tablet hybrids is that few want to spend that much money.)
As long as they don't take as long as Google with the Nexus shortages, they're not doing that bad (do we even know what the story is? The Nexus 4 should be taking the smartphone world by storm; the Nexus 10 ends any reason to buy an ipad - except it's still hard to be getting either of them...)
Re: So in summary
You can write the UI in C++ on Android - I don't see why the Java layer on Android needs to be anymore than what you say is needed for iphone?
Although I use Qt on Android, and don't write a single line of Java.
Re: So in summary
I think it's unfair to compare on what Google say, as it's penalising them for being honest, whilst Apple meanwhile claim their devices are "magical"... (meanwhile most Apple users see imperfections as "Why would you want to do that", or even a feature).
"But most Android devices aren't JB yet."
Most devices aren't iphones. One can still buy a specific device if you know you want JB.
Re: So in summary
All you're seeing there is that when someone uses an Apple product, they have to advertise the fact, and it gets an article in the news. (And it's still a device looking for use - great, I can lug a big expensive device around, and leave the paper at home!)
Obviously one can use devices to display sheet music, including tablets, same with using devices in performances. Sorry, nothing special or magical about IOS.
Re: Not just for loyalists
No ecosystem? It's a smartphone, not a rainforest.
(Seriously, I've never understood what this recent marketing-speak actually means. I thought it was something to do with software, you know, that thing we've had for decades, but then you get people like you saying some platforms with software still don't have an "ecosystem", or that this is some kind of recent thing.)
Re: This is US only, not at all representative of worldwide (also means that Apple aren't #1)
Yes, I covered that in my post - it's fair game to note that Nokia/WP still haven't cracked the US market ("Nokia still haven't broken into the US market, despite them hoping to with WP"). And yes, if their reasoning for ditching Symbian was to crack the US market, it's also a bad move. But we have an article conflating US sales with the worldwide market, and many comments doing the same.
Re: This is US only, not at all representative of worldwide (also means that Apple aren't #1)
Asha is a smartphone - how is it not? The weird thing is why manufacturers continue with the odd "feature" label (no, it might not be as good as a high end smartphone, but neither is a cheap Android, or still-on-sale older iphone - it's like saying a £300 laptop isn't a laptop, as it isn't as good as my £1500 one).
3rd party industry observers have included Asha (I forget which off hand, but this was why Nokia started counting it as a smartphone). Unlike Apple, who declared their dumb phone a smartphone, even when it couldn't run apps (something that feature phones did years earlier).
Yes, it's a fair point to note that their recent growth has come much more from Asha than WP (although the latter still grows), but I'm not sure why people try to redefine Asha as not being a smartphone. Indeed, surely it's more damning of WP, if most of their smartphone growth is from another platform? (Also I wouldn't say it is either rocketing, or mysterious - up until recently, their smartphone sales were much higher - they went down as Symbian was phased out, now they're going up as they introduce new smartphone platforms.)
"Do any browsers support orientation detection? Properly, I mean, not just re-flowing the text. A dedicate app will often adopt an entirely different layout in horizontal mode than vertical mode. Putting buttons along the top instead of down the side for instance."
Actually I often find a reverse, an "app" will be hardcoded for one orientation, whilst the webpage will at least do some reasonable job at coping.
Re: This
True, though I think the thing that really makes things odd is all the people advertising "apps" for their website for ipads. Seems like at least one advert per ad break advertises an ipad app, whilst Sky have launched a whole industry for fishermen with ipads, and casinos.
So if the reason is for small devices, that doesn't apply to big ipads with high resolutions. And if there's some other reason why an application is better, I wonder why there isn't an application for Windows (Windows x86, not WP or RT), for you know, the majority of people who use those laptop things, rather than the minority of Apple users. (And maybe an app for OS X and Linux users too, if they want to be cross-platform.)
Perhaps it's that they only produce for devices with cut-down browsers (but so much for the idea of ios devices having good browsers - maybe good compared to a feature phone, perhaps). The only other explanation is that they're produced by managers who think an "app" is something special that only runs on Apple devices (or perhaps Android). At least once now, I've heard someone say "Windows 8 can now run apps" ...
Re: Is hell exothermic or endothermic?
Indeed - and people forget just how poorly iphone sold in its early years, only really getting mainstream 2010-2011.
(Plus remember, these stats are US only, so completely useless for info on worldwide share or sales.)
I don't think I've seen total WP for Q4 2012 - for Nokia alone it was 4.something million.
(I agree about the problems of "market share" - for years the media moaned about Nokia's "falling share", but actually their Symbian sales were not only increasing, but doing so at a faster rate - in absolute numbers - than iphone. But the media spun it so Apple were top, Nokia last. Funnily enough, now that Apple are in exactly the same situation with their ipads - falling share, but increasing sales - the media seem less keen to use this tactic...)
This is US only, not at all representative of worldwide (also means that Apple aren't #1)
This is US only, whilst WP8 still grows overall. That's why the figures don't match up, either with the Nokia adverts, or what MS have said (as reported in the article). The only lie is the Register spinning US-only facts as if it was representative of the worldwide market.
Similarly with Android vs IOS or Samsung vs Apple. Worldwide, Samsung are first (and Nokia second), way ahead of Apple. And in the US, last quarter IOS went up with Android falling, but that was only in the US - worldwide Android continues to dominate.
I don't care for WP, but I dislike articles trying to mislead people just to push an agenda - it seems that not one single other commenter noticed that these figures are for the US only.
The only valid point worth reporting is that Nokia still haven't broken into the US market, despite them hoping to with WP. But that isn't a fall - Symbian never made it in the US either. In general, the US has never been representative of worldwide usage. I mean, in 2007 they thought Apple's dumb phone was something amazingly new because the US was years behind in phone tech, whilst everyone else had had apps and Internet years before even on feature phones, not to mention the US not having seen smartphones before. And whilst Android has caught on since then, it's still not dominating in the way that it has outside the US.
Re: Did I miss the big Microsoft advertising blitz?
I don't about MS, but practically *every single US show* (at least, those that also air over here) in the last five or more years has Apple product placement in it. The only exceptions being those where it doesn't make sense (e.g., sci-fi, fantasy, historical). (Thankfully those are my favourite genres...)
Re: Unsurprising really..
Things weren't that bad - Symbian *did* rule the world, as in being number one, as late as 2011. True, it missed the chance to be the "standard OS for everything" that ultimately dominated, because Android got in there, but it had an excellent run nonetheless.
Re: Unsurprising really..
Have you actually used it anytime recently?
Symbian uses Qt, one of the best programming APIs I've come across. And having used recent Symbian and Android, I find them both good, each have their pluses and minuses.
"it could potentially ruffle the feathers of its hardware partners in much the same way that Microsoft rankled OEMs by releasing Surface under its own brand."
But is this actually made by Google, or a Google branded device made by a hardware partner, as has been the case with Nexus devices and Chromebooks so far? If the latter, it's no different to before.
(Assuming it isn't just vaporware of course.)
Re: "..at $329.99 "
He has a point though - with a Linux/Windows laptop, you can still do all the Google/cloud stuff, and have the extra functionality too. Not that I'm saying Chrome OS is bad - it's good to have choice, and these are priced at the very low end of laptops (unlike the earlier generations).
But it's reasonable to compare to other low cost laptops (most people seem to be comparing to netbooks, which doesn't seem right to me - they are smaller and have much better battery life, but less performance; if you want performance and a larger device, and don't need as long battery life, normal laptops are the thing to compare to).
"have it backed up is far more important"
I don't really agree with Google's "you don't have to back it up" argument - if data is only online, I still want to make offline backups. I guess you could argue that Google are more reliable than most, and won't go away anytime soon, but still - everytime a cloud solution disappears, if someone hasn't backed it up elsewhere, the response here is to say it's their own fault. For something as important as business, you wouldn't want to stake your livelihood on another company like that, so you'd still need the IT to do the offline backup. Not to mention issues like security considerations. So I'd say the opposite - Chrome makes things easier for the casual user (who probably doesn't do any backup, so Google is going to be more reliable than an average local hard disk), but it's less useful for business use. (Although true, there are probably a horrifying number of small businesses with no backup systems either... - I guess my point is that even where it's an improvement, it's not like you should do away with backup.)
Re: Laptops with no OS.
PC Specialist sell Clevos with option of no OS.
True, that's probably not a "big name manufacturer", but then I think the answer there is that big names care more about what sells the most, and most people want to buy with an OS. But if you want a no-OS machine, vote with your wallet :)
Re: bestseller
It's an odd world. A year or two ago, everyone said "Why bother with a Chromebook, you can get a Windows/Linux netbook that does all the Google webstuff, and more". Now it's "Oh wait, no one sells netbooks, but you can get a Chromebook".
(Actually though, you can still get low end cheap laptops - not as portable, but neither is this 14" Chromebook; and more powerful than netbooks. I'm not sure there are any Chromebooks as small as the 10" netbooks? Plus it helps that the latest generation of Chromebooks are significantly cheaper, putting them at the lowest end of laptop costs.)
Re: Brand loyalty
Quite. I'm thoroughly confused how, in a debate about Samsung vs Apple phones, people argue for the latter by saying "But Samsung users have more freedom to move to other makes of phones".
(I've noticed this generally with Apple debates. It doesn't matter what products one personally like, it just seems odd when one group of people aren't even arguing the debate by the same rules - it's like one set of people saying they prefer chocolate ice cream because it tastes better, and another saying they don't like chocolate because it costs less, there are lots of varieties to choose from, you can eat it from any make of bowl, and the chocolate factory doesn't make as much money as apple farms. It's like, yes but how on earth is any of that a relevant argument?)
Aside from being untrue (Samsung outsell Apple even at only the high end; plus many Apple sales are made up of cheap products, like the older phones still on sale, not to mention other areas like mp3 players), I find this argument odd anyway. The cost of a phone is just as much a part of the product - any old fool can produce something if cost is no object, but delivering it at a cost that people buy is what takes the skill.
I mean, you might as well say "Most people would buy Apple, but buy Samsung as they make better phones". It's absurd to handwave away the latter part as an excuse, and spin it as Apple being better. Rather, the fact that Samsung deliver to customers here means it's they that have done better. The fact that a hypothetical Apple might do better in a hypothetical world where the phones were better or they weren't so expensive is neither here nor there.
Re: @ Mark
Yes, I'm talking about GNU/Linux - Android may be "Linux" in the sense of using the kernel, but that helps little when trying to port with the OS that-people-usually-refer-to-as "Linux" (maybe RMS was right that we should call it "GNU/Linux" after all...)
Is it possible to run GNU/Linux software on Android by installing libraries?
