Re: @mutatedwombat

"They will see that it is possible, even enjoyable to move away from the Beast of Redmond. Microsoft ... Or the 30,000 deployed Macbooks at IBM."

Seriously - why are people here so eager to praise and what the success of Apple over MS, a company that's trying to block the most successful open source operating system, with software and design patents?

Not to mention that that would leave us with a company controlling the hardware and OS, rather than just the OS.

I'd love to see more open source success, and more choice in operating systems. But your vision is of a world with less choice.

And I could say the same of Apple - just because they still sell "Macbooks" (why not call them laptops or PCs, like for any other company?) doesn't mean it's important.

Re: @Trevor

And to think people here still criticise MS for lock-in...

You can webcam on Windows btw. And since most people use Windows, most people are better off web-camming with something that runs on multiple platforms, rather than just a minority platform like Apple. I guess you asked an Apple fan - for most people, that really doesn't make sense.

"Facetime" is just Apple's trademark for something that everyone else did years earlier (flagship feature on an iphone 4? This was standard in 2005 on a feature phone).

And "true" market share of ipods is smaller, too

"Do I have Windows systems? Yes. Do I plan on refreshing them any time in the forseebale future? No. In fact; I am "Libre Office that works with touch, keyboard and mouse on Android" away from being able to walk away from Microsoft for anything except my collection of older Steam games.

For the actual heavy lifting stuff, I find that all the big apps I need have been ported to OSX."

It's great that you're smug about being free of Windows and supporting Free software - but then we find you're an Apple user! I never understand that logic.

Plus it sounds like you're in agreement with the OP - yes, why not include TVs, along with microwaves and washing machines - that Windows has smaller share when you include the market you're looking at is hardly suprising, and nothing new.

Apple's market share of mp3 players is a lot smaller, if we included all devices that can play mp3s! Or especially, all devices that play music. Why not include all the sales of phones, laptops, tablets, stereo systems, and then see the "True" market share of ipods!

Re: LOL

Couldn't agree more.

If we're looking at "any kind of computing device" this is nothing new. I'm sure that the media want to pretend it's something new, as part of some Windows decline, but we've had mobile phones being mainstream for ten years (Symbian was dominant until 2011 - and why stop at "smartphones" when "feature" phones are also mobile computers, just with a different marketing name?), and before that, we also had games consoles. It's also long been obvious that phones will sell more than PCs (phones are intrinsically something one person has, where as many people still share computers; and people upgrade phones more often).

I'm sure people could make the same claim about the popularity of ARM versus Intel - but again, it's nothing new! I remember in the 1990s reading an article pointing out that actually it was ARM that was very popular, on par with Intel, because of all their use in embedded and mobile hardware.

It's also worth noting that this kind of argument makes every platform look smaller. So Windows is only 20% - but OS X and GNU Linux are also a lot smaller. And Android is no longer at 75% in mobile, it's a lot smaller. Let's throw in all those feature phones too, as I say, and watch the share for Android and Windows go even smaller... (Nokia's S40 still probably sells more than Android, for example.)

That's not to say that it isn't interesting to look at operating system share as a whole, on all kinds of devices - but it's nothing surprising to see a different picture, nor is it anything new.

Re: Not much chance of that

"they can release a 3840x2160 Retina TV"

You mean, 4K TV, which already exists in TVs today (Retina is just a marketing trademark, not an actual standard term for a resolution size).

"Being the only people offering convenient one-click access to quad-HD content ... I would pay $0.99 per half-hour for the BBC Wildlife Film Unit doing what it does best in quad-HD."

I would not be happy if the licence-payer funded BBC programs were only available for users of one company, thus locking out the majority of users who use other products, limiting competition in the market, and letting that company also have a 30% cut of the fee that customers pay. There was an uproar when iplayer "only" supported the 90% of Windows users, let alone this...

Re: What could Apple bring to the table?

"What I can do is outline some of the problems with TVs at the moment that need to be solved."

Great. Nothing to do with Apple though, anymore than it is with Microsoft or Hoover or Debenhams or anyone else who doesn't make TVs.

"The main problem is the vast collection of remote controls and their associated buttons that you need to control the TV and all the other stuff attached to it."

LG Smart TVs have a remote with hardly any buttons. Already solved.

"The second big problem is the confusing array of different user interfaces you have to deal with, depending on where you are."

Not sure what you mean?

"Apple would definitely sort that out ... Apple would make that much more consistent."

It's the "They are better than the competition" argument, based on products that *don't even exist*.

No reason to think that Apple would do anything for the second problem you list, since all the applications on their products can have different UIs too. Even for the first, a touchscreen actually allows UIs to have more buttons etc (just that they're in software, rather than physical) - indeed, that's the good thing about them. But they certainly don't reduce the number things to press. My experience is that older less computer-experienced people prefer to stick with phones with a physical keypad, as it's easy and simple, compared with the multitude of UIs in a touchscreen device. Similarly my parents found the aforementioned LG remote confusing because they didn't like clicking icons, and prefer to stick with a traditional remote with all the buttons on it.

As for your bank balance, probably not - ideas are cheap, it's building the products, bringing them to market, and marketing, that's all the difficulty. You couldn't make money just by thinking up the idea (nor would it stop anyone from later patenting it, based on recent events...)

Re: If all they do is improve Smart TV UI's...

Well sure, but I don't see how that relates to what the OP said - every iphone app has different UIs too. (Indeed, it used to be the case that mobiles would use the common standard UI of a web browser, but now we have every site having to have its own different "app".)

I agree it would be good to have some open standard where by online video services came through a common protocol. No reason to think that Apple would do that though.

Also note that Smart TVs already *do* offer this for local streaming. The people saying "Just use HDMI on a TV" have the problem that every device they connect to to play has its own different interface. But when I stream to the smart TV, it doesn't matter what kind or make of device I use (PC, tablet, phone, network hard disk, connected USB hard disk or media player; Linux, Windows, Android, etc), it all comes through the same standard UI on the TV. If anything, based on historical precedence, Apple would be worse here - they're likely to tie it in with itunes.

Re: If all they do is improve Smart TV UI's...

I'm still waiting to hear what this amazing whole new UI was, that others than supposedly copied. At a fundamental level, my Android works like my old Symbian. And my old Symbian is the obvious touch-extension from the way my 2005 feature phone worked (touch on icon rather than click with button on icon). There are things like multitouch and bounceback, but these are just additional touches. By far the biggest advantage comes from having a touchscreen at all. And by far the biggest thing that made touchscreens more usable was having larger (~4.5") screens. (First generation iphone wasn't a smartphone btw, couldn't run apps.)

You also play the classic vaporware trick, where you assert that a product *that doesn't even exist* will be better than what's available. It's impossible to argue against. I might as well say, I wish there was a new Amiga TV, because it'll be better than the current rubbish, I just don't know how.

(I don't find TV UIs that bad - you're basically limited when you just have an infra red remote. LG TV have a bluetooth pointer that works better, but it's still a bit difficult to use, again that's a problem that will apply to any TV that's controlled from your sofa. Perhaps the best would be to have a mirrored application control on a phone/tablet/laptop, but then LG already offer this. Other possibilities would be voice control, again you already get that on some TVs.)

Smart TVs do exactly what you want.

I think you're confusing it with that hypothetical Apple TV :)

Smart TVs do exactly what you want. Well, of course, any TV these days can act as a big monitor, in that you can connect to a PC or other device via HDMI. But smart TVs can also stream wirelessly, which saves loads of cables, or is useful if the device is on your lap or in another room. They can also "pull" rather than just "push" (i.e., you can use the TV remote to browse things to watch on a device, rather than having to use the PC with the TV acting as a monitor, although you can still do that too).

Online services come from anywhere you want - iplayer, netflix, youtube, or even just a random webpage. In fact I don't think LG even have their own services, let alone a walled garden.

I can easily see one manufacturer producing a TV that only works with their online site, with their devices, with their custom cables, connectors and wireless protocols... but that's not any smart TV around today.

Re: A quick shareprice boost is all

I agree - although note, it doesn't really matter if they released a TV that couldn't do what most TVs could do, and where Internet-only TV doesn't yet make sense for most people. They could still do it, and get all the praise for being "first" (never mind that Internet playing is pretty much standard on TVs, and the reason TVs aren't Internet only is because it doesn't make sense).

It doesn't matter if initial sales are poor just like the first iphones, and it takes years to grow - people will still declare it an amazing success as long as it sells one million in 76 days, and ignore that it's only years later (and when they finally add in the functionality that other TVs have) that sales actually become mainstream. At which point, they can reap the profits, as well as being falsely credited for being first, or popularising something - even though any other company doing it now would be written off as a flop.

You're right, it doesn't make sense - but with the RDF, these rules unfortunately don't apply.

Re: Smart tv's run Android

I thought that at first, but now I disagree. Firstly Smart TVs get upgrades - and this time not held up by the networks - so Google TVs could see updates as long as the hardware supports it.

Secondly, the reason people upgrade TVs less often is because there's less need to - which also means there's less reason to care about having the latest OS anyway. It's still extremely useful having features like streaming (from local network and Internet), web/Youtube/etc, PVR built in as standard, saving the need for an extra box and yet more wires. It also means less UI hassle, as you don't have to switch TV inputs from TV to "smart box".

These things will still be useful in years to come when new things come out - and if I decide I want something more in five years' time, there's nothing stopping me adding a separate box then.

By your logic, do you buy TVs without freeview, because that can be a separate box? Eventually I suspect that smart TV features will be a standard, just like freeview - it already is in most non-cheap TVs these days - at which point you might as well get it anyway, there's no advantage to actively avoiding it. (If you mean it was dumb for the industry to do it this way - well maybe, except no one was buying the separate standalone boxes.)

Re: Smart tv's run Android

Er, not quite ... most "smart" TVs don't run Android, there are a whole range of systems that they use. There is Google TV, which certainly has a head start on anything from Apple or MS, though it's not the standard platform yet. E.g., I believe LG have now started using Google TV for their latest 2012 range, but only in the US market. I have an LG Smart TV, which is great, though no sign of Android.

Yes, there's one camera that runs Android, the Samsung Galaxy Camera. The division between cameras and phones is increasingly blurred anyway (I wonder how the Nokia 808 Pureview's camera compares to the Galaxy Camera...)

Re: final blow for Windows

I don't see why a non-Windows console is a killer blow for Windows PCs - we already have plenty of non-Windows consoles.

"In a couple of years, when office-like products will be on all tablets, there'll be absolutely no point in having a PC with Windows."

Ah yes, Windows 8 is doomed because no one wants to use touch at all, but everyone will throw away their PCs and run pure touch tablets. Which is it? Given the usual strong dislike of replacing keyboards/mouse with touch, I've got to laugh that the opinion is suddenly voted up when it's used to criticise Windows again.

What, office workers are supposed to spend all day holding up their arms with a touchscreen? Yet, go to one of the Windows 8 threads, and I dare you to suggest that touchscreens are good for replacing PCs, and see how quick you get voted down. The double-standard is ridiculous.

"As far as I'm concerned, my games portfolio has already moved to Macos and I'm looking forward to seeing it on my TV, with a box !"

Ah, an Apple user. I do find it odd that people are smug to have moved away from MS - and then you find they're an *Apple* user. Sorry, I don't see how being stuck with one company for hardware and OS is better than being stuck with one company for OS! And your vapour TV, if they ever release it, will presumably be running IOS rather than OS X (unless you just mean plugging your computer into a TV, which anyone can do...)

Personally I like Linux and Windows - but above all, I like my choice of PC hardware. A world where there's only one choice of hardware, and we have to use only tablets, is not what many of us want! Nor do any of the advantages of Linux/Android over Windows apply to OS X or IOS.

(And for other readers advocating Linux - if PCs get replaced with consoles and tablets, whilst many may be running the Linux kernel, it will also be the end of the GNU/Linux distributions running on machines with keyboards that we love - there seems to be little attempt to get them onto tablets, and phones with Linux distributions like Maemo/Meego are no longer available.)

Does the Google maps website do satnav? I think that's only for Android.

Shouldn't a smartphone Just Work, rather than needing to carry around big paper maps, and have backup links to other websites? At which point when driving should one decide that the phone provided satnav isn't working, and you have to stop and dig out the paper map, or start browsing manually on a map website?

Re: Google has trademarked their "G inside a box with curved corners"...

I'm not sure it's much of an argument to say "Just because this more complex thing can be trademarked, therefore this very simple thing can be too". We're not talking about the combination of a particular style of a letter, together with an additional geometric shape, we're talking about a single simple shape formed by two curves.

If there's no line, then can anything be trademarked, even say a single line?

Note that the last one about the Apple Farm is a parody. Though I think that in itself makes a point, it's sad that it's so hard to tell the actual real life events from parody (I only suspected it was parody from the over-the-top ridicule in the quotes - the basic gist of the story came across entirely believable, given the recent events with rounded rectangles...)

Indeed - similarly Apple Records is a company that sells music, and Apple is a company that sells music. Wait a minute.

Re: Why doesn't Apple simply 'Man Up'?

Does the Google maps have satnav? If not, it's not an alternative.

Sure, you can pay to get a 3rd party one, to get functionality that's been available in Android and Nokia phones for years...

When I bought a house, I was thankfully able to have a full choice of houses, even though most of them followed this rectangular-corner pattern, and all followed this same basic design.

Re: Whoodathunkdit??

I'm not sure why having fewer choice of models is relevant in anyway. It's a different way of working.

I wouldn't favour or praise a company for having higher profit margins either - that's higher prices, without the higher quality.

Re: Whoodathunkdit??

"the world likes iPad and Windows, for whatever reasons"

The former isn't anywhere near the same scale as the latter. True, most people don't hate them, but most people don't care either, and are using Android and Windows.

Re: Whoodathunkdit??

I agree, though just to note:

"The genius of Apple's catalogue is that nobody knew they wanted these things - iPad, iPod touch et al - until they saw one. Then they became overnight must-haves."

The "genius" is indeed marketing - and note this was not overnight, but there was vast amounts of free media hype for months before the products were even announced, let alone released.

Nor are their products overnight must haves, but grow just like any other product line. Just look at the iphone platform compared to other smartphone sales since 2007 - it wasn't until iphone 4 that sales were really anywhere near mainstream. In the early years they were behind even Windows Mobile. Or the original ipod only worked with Macs, and was a flop, only growing with later generations.

But I do agree that they are in a corner, now that the "computer" market is saturated with a continual range from small handheld to large full desktop, with everything in between, and no more gaps. Their mp3 player products will face increasing competition from smartphones and tablets (especially now that they changed connector messes up all the free unfair advantage they get from those making speakers and stereo systems in cars, by only working with ipods/iphones).

Of course there are other markets to enter - TVs, consoles, washing machines, and no doubt they'll get loads of media hype for any new product there, even though other companies have been doing the same thing just as well for years.

High quality fashion brands don't need to stick their logos everywhere (let alone make them light up) - people know what they are from the design itself, and if you don't know, you're not considered the target market (or so the argument goes - personally I find the whole "designer" thing a bit nonsense). But what they do is more like Adidas, with logos everywhere. No doubt the buyers think it makes them look cool, but that doesn't mean anyone else cares. If someone has, e.g., an Armani suit, you know (or don't know) because of the suit - not because there's "Armani" written in light up letters across the back. Similarly with watches - indeed, it's the cheap ones that put a logo there.

Re: A n o n y m o u s

"that hasnt changed the development pattern or profits for developers. iOS is still king."

Because there's plenty more for free on Android, which I'd say is a better thing. But remember it's not all about profit - many apps are free, because they're given away by companies for their websites, or to advertise a product or service. There the key thing is market share (or it ought to be - unfortunately a lot of ppl think that iphone is the largest platform, but eventually the truth will catch up).

"It hasnt changed the web usage either with the vast majority of web usage still done on iOs devices."

Citation needed. There are various tracking sites making various claims, though I've seen plenty that show Android on top, as well as ones showing other platforms like Nokia above iphone. There was only a short period a few years ago where iphone was top, but the other platforms quickly overtook.

Re: Simples

The better comparison for that would be Google, who are now making money off of 75% of smartphone users (and rising) from the media and applications/games, without having to do much at all when it comes to making and selling hardware (even the Google branded devices are manufactured by other companies). They've also done very little advertising for Android, compared to the vast amounts for iphones/ipads.

Google also already have Google TV (which has had a slow start, but now seems to be being picked up by the TV manufacturers, particularly in the US now).

"Huge installed userbase" - so does just about any multinational company.

Plus who cares anyway. From a consumer point of view, I care little about which company makes more money - that just means they're the ones pocketing more of my money as profit, rather than functionality for me.

Re: Did you learn nothing from the Samsung trial?

By this argument, nothing is obvious, because no matter when it was first done, I can say "Why wasn't it done before that". Unless we're talking about things that were done by the very first human, according to you, everything is non-obvious.

(The actual answer is that some things aren't required or possible to be done until the required underlying technology or market appears. At which point, there might be several obvious ideas that people then implement, but there will always be one that is first - that doesn't make it non-obvious.)

"Bellyaching here won't help."

But then you are posting here...

Re: Hackers would go after Windows phones...

You are correct, but you're still in agreement that they aren't the same OS, rather it's the same kernel. He was arguing against the people claiming they are both "Linux", therefore both the same thing.

Re: Hackers would go after Windows phones...

I assume he means GNU/Linux[*], and is talking about the debate about malware on desktop operating systems, of the GNU Linux OSs, versus Windows. Yes, chances are there's less malware on an OS that isn't used as much, and more on one that is, but that argument applies to the desktop as well as mobile - you can't have your cake and eat it. It is kind of amusing that this argument is dismissed in debates about desktop OSs, but the moment it crops up on mobile, people jump at the chance to moan about MS. (Disclaimer, I'm an Android user, and love it.)

* - for all these years we thought that RMS was just being pedantic, but now that the most common OS using the Linux kernel isn't the same as the desktop operating systems we also call "Linux", he may well have had a point.

Re: Microsoft REALLY desperate now

MS: Make a few anti-Android tweets.

Certain other company: Agenda to destroy Android, by using software and design patents, already achieving court success at taking a billion dollars from leading Android companies, and banning Android products from sale.

There's certainly desperation here - but it's interesting to compare the levels of desperation at work here. I would hope that no one's persuaded to buy a product by these tweets; and I hope that people are actively put off buying a product by court actions.

Re: Fake nonsense statistics based on flawed samples

That's an interesting interpretation - perhaps it explains why people answered that way. Though it makes the information useless (how large is large? And okay, so I select the ones with large userbases - if that leaves me with 2 or more, and I pick one that's not the largest, it seems odd to say it's the most important criterion, rather than one of several criteria).

Re: What was it worth?

In fact it wasn't even the iphone - because the original iphone couldn't run applications! That didn't come until the "3G" in 2008 (by which time, even more manufacturers, including Nokia with Symbian, had started producing touchscreen smartphones than before).

I'm not sure what caused the craze - in particular, this craze that every company needs to have an "app" for their service or site, as opposed to more conventional uses of software. It's not clear it was having their own software distribution site - because even though every platform now has had that for years, iphone still gets catered for above all else.

Re: Reference platform

"If you can find a single model of an Android phone that outsells the iPhone, I'll eat my hat and Paris at the same time."

That'd be the Samsung S3, best selling individual device of Q3 2012. Time to eat your hat.

("the iPhone" is not a single model btw, hell even individually labelled models have variations; it's a complete platform/range from a company, and would be better compared to either Samsung sales or Android sales anyway.)

Android is not the "alternative" (75% market share; iphone has never been number one, see my other comment). I'm not sure that cost is the factor, since the high end models sell well (e.g., the S3). It's well publicised that Samsung and Apple make big profits, so there is certainly room to reduce the price without sacrificing quality. And it seems to be the iphone that benefits from other products supporting it - just witness all the "get the iphone app" and all the cars/speakers/leads etc that support just iphones, and not an industry standard solution.

Re: Fake nonsense statistics based on flawed samples

Would this be the same iphone developers that claim the main reason for choosing a platform is going for the largest installbase (see a recent Register article), when iphone has never been the largest mobile platform?

Yes, if they can't even look up something basic like sales, I'm not sure I'd trust them on something less easy to measure.

I agree it's old news, though in a way, I wouldn't want too many millionaires either - the idea that people could make loads of money from just writing any old rubbish doesn't seem right either.

What is sad though is the way that this myth has been spun about how you can make so much money on mobile (especially this myth is spread for iphone), which has caused a bandwagon effect, which still remains even though it ought to be clear that any "gold rush" stage has been past. There's also this myth about how it's possible for people to make it rich with little effort or zero marketing, when in practice, the winners are those that have had lots of marketing. This myth that the Internet makes things an equal stage, when in practice we see many of the same traditional problems to publishing and marketing still apply.

People are drawn in by the stories of people who made millions, but you don't hear the stories of everyone else. Statistics of average sales will typically use the mean, which will be skewed if most money is made by a few - we really need to look at the median. So even though this is old news for us, it's still good to hear it, as many aren't aware of it.

(There's a similar effect with e-books - I've heard people say how e-book writing is the new gold rush, but if everyone's talking about 50SOG, I think it's clear that it isn't any more. And when one book sells well because it's talked about it all the mainstream media, whilst most other books are ignored, I don't see how that's different to how things were before the Internet, if anything, things seem even more distorted.)

Re: Reference platform

"Hardly shifting millions on the first day like Apple does on a regular basis."

Note that Android sells over 1 million a day (possibly more now, I don't know the latest figures). That's all year round, rather than just the yearly bump where everyone rushes to buy a product that's been advertised for months previously, and where the sales then fall. Similarly by manufacturer, Samsung sell around 1 million phones a day.

True, we've no idea how many have or will be sold, but I think his point was more that Google are now able to generate this hype on top of the success of Android, and of companies like Samsung. And they do so without annoying them (otherwise there would be the danger that extra success for the LG Nexus 4 would hurt Samsung). And this hype comes from what Google have done, rather than already been publicised by the media months before it was even officially announced.

"The side fandroids are willing to take because it isn't an iPhone."

Current sales are around 75% Android, 15% iphone. iphone has never been the number one platform. So no, Android is not the alternative - rather, whilst other OSs have faded away somewhat, it's iphone that is the alternative to what most people are using. Not that there's anything wrong with that - but just clarifying the facts.

It's also worth noting that even if you don't remove the card, and just stick with plugging the phone into the PC, separate SD cards have the advantage of being able to be mounted as an external drive, which often isn't possible with internal storage for technical reasons. Though Android does at least support the open standard of MTP, and I like that in Windows for example, this is presented similar to as if it was just another external drive (though indeed, it isn't quite as good, as you say).

"what are they going to do, store BluRays on it?"

But that's an interesting point in itself, especially if we look at certain tablets that also lack microSD. Given the HD resolutions of phones and tablets, not to mention the higher-than-Full-HD resolutions of the Nexus 10 and recent ipads, and given that one of the primary purposes of these high resolutions (especially for tablets) is for viewing videos, I find myself wondering, how does one store movies with high enough resolution to actually take advantage of it? Full HD Blu-Ray is 25GB per disc. One could perhaps use better codecs, but even at best, IME 40 mins of Full HD is over 1GB, so that space quickly fulls up. And that's using Internet-quality codecs that probably have lower quality anyway, so it's a false economy to have higher resolution if you just end up reducing the quality.

Of course there's streaming, but not many people are on a plan that can download many GBs per month. So that leaves sitting on the sofa at home, but I'd rather do that on my big LG smart TV, or on a 17" laptop, than having to awkwardly hold a small tablet. I'm not saying there isn't a use, but I do find this obsession of super high resolutions, simultaneously with limited storage space, an odd choice. (And never mind microSDs, I wonder why no one's made a large tablet with a hard disk - if a primary purpose of tablets is to view media, and one can buy small mp3 and video players that have over 100GB of hard disk space, it seems like it should be possible to put that into a larger device?) It would also be fine if there was lots of storage as standard, but many phones/tablets get limited at 16GB (S3 and Nexus 7/10 at least has 32GB option, and the Transformer Prime you mention has up to 64GB).

This isn't a criticism against the Nexus 4 btw - it's a low cost device with better specs than the competition, despite the lack of microSD, and one can always buy an S3 if you want that. But I do think it's reasonable to criticise limited storage options.

Re: Lovely... Google not able to shift the Nexus stock quick enough...

"Desperate signals from Google when the iPad is still flying off the shelves with very little effort."

Apple receives vastly more free hype and advertise than anyone else, and never mind subsidised, I've lost track of the number of "win a free ipad/iphone" - seems they can't even give them away. Yet there's one single subsidised Android device, and that's "desperate"?

Only just now, reading a random website, I see yet another "Get the iphone app" - sorry, like most people I don't have an iphone. Where's the support for those of us using the popular platforms like Android, Symbian or Windows desktop? Or for those who like to think different with Blackberry or Linux?

"very little effort"? IOS devices have been the most overhyped and most marketed product in history, yet they failed to outsell Symbian in its lifetime, and now are outsold by Android by almost five to one - despite zero effort for either of those two platforms.

"Also my mac book air is way more powerful than most laptops"

That's the one with integrated graphics isn't it?

There are plenty of ultra-portables from other companies btw, from way cheaper netbooks, to the high end powerful ones.

Re: Sounds like....

Also known as a dumb phone. Most people manage to get one for about £10.

Re: Doing What Jobs Urged Them To

Jobs is the one having the last laugh re Flash. He would be very pleased to see how right he was about Flash (dead on Android, dead on Linux, dying on OS X and Windows),

Yes and no - I mean yes, he was right that it would one day die out, but this was not a difficult prediction - it was clear that HTML5 was planned, and this was clearly the better way forward long term. This was what almost everyone was saying.

But it's also worth nothing that with the IOS devices, it wasn't about dropping Flash to embrace HTML5, but instead to support "apps" as their lock-in. So like, we went from sites that required a closed proprietary application that could run on most platforms, to sites that now require a closed proprietary exe that only runs on one type of hardware! Hardly an improvement - out of the frying pan, into the fire, I'd say. Furthermore, Jobs's actions did nothing to kill Flash, as the response from websites was to make the closed exe for IOS devices, and still use Flash for other platforms; it wasn't to move to HTML5.

Compare this to Google who more recently removed Flash from Android, but they also updated Youtube to use HTML5 (as opposed to requiring you to use an Android-only app).

Flash may be dying, but we should hold off cheering until websites can be accessed through any device, including all mobile devices, using HTML5 and not platform specific closed exes that might or might not work on your device.

Re: umm, this IS a laptop

"You could not make a PC that thin, with a display as good that was as quiet in running as the mac. "

Given that Macs *are* PCs, this is complete nonsense. Certainly there are all-in-one PCs from companies other than Apple. I don't know off hand if Apple make the thinnest - if they do, it's more down them choosing not to for whatever reason, rather than it being impossible because of the semantic issue of labelling it a "PC". There are also plenty of silent PCs.

And the obvious example would be PC laptops, which exist with far smaller volumes than this Apple all-in-one PC, as well as often being silent. As noted, the imac has laptop components anyway. So yes, it is clearly possible to make a PC of that size.

As for cables, what powers an imac, hot air? There are two less cables (monitor to PC, and extra power cord), but that's it. The only option for zero cables is a laptop running on battery. But for the niche purposes where an all-in-one is useful (I admit there are a couple), there are various PCs to choose from, not just this one.

Re: fuss over nothing

A Mac *is* a PC these days, just a brandname for one company's computer.

I've had no trouble repairing PCs or PC parts from various companies, though to be honest this is an extremely rare thing when buying complete systems.

The "repair things for free" seems either a myth, or very much a matter of luck. I've experienced the case where they refuse to repair something, despite us paying for the insurance (I guess it doesn't cover everything, after all, despite what some claim).

Re: the charging unit will only work with identified devices

The worse thing is when the industry goes along with them - it frustrates me that so many audio devices cater only for ipods or the minority of Apple phone users. What if like most people I want to plug in an Android smartphone, or I just Think Different and use something like my Sansa? (I'm amused that my LG smart TV actually makes a better audio player than most dedicated audio equipment, because it uses open standards like USB or network playing - plug in or stream from any kind of device.)

Of course they've been hoisted by their own petard, now that the iphone 5 is incompatible with this apple-only system, messing the whole system up - if only they'd used open standards...

Since Samsung make much of the hardware in apple devices, your point is irrelevant anyway.

And it's a proven fact that apple have far higher profit margins. The extra money you give to apple isn't going to the workers, it's going to shareholders.

Re: It will be an uphill struggle for Google

Yes it's so terrible that my platform has loads of top quality software for free, where as you pay for stuff. A struggle indeed.

Re: Could be a much needed kick up the arse...

You're not an Apple fan, but you're sounding like one...

My LG TV's interface is just fine. And it streams with any OS I like, any device I like, using any software I like, using open standards.

The Apple world is to make you use itunes (which I find horrendous - and even if you don't, the point is that people should have a choice), and be optimised to work with Apple idevices. Just look at the fiasco in the audio industry where so much stuff only supports being physically connected to an Apple only idevice. And then that gets stuffed up when Apple change the connector - serves them right.

Loads of manufacturers are already competing to build even better systems. And Google are moving in with Google TV, which is gaining support. Apple would be just yet another company, coming late to the party.

Re: Just trying to protect their balliwick

Quite - the thing is that if Apple do make a TV, then even though Samsung, LG etc may remain bigger sellers of "smart" TVs, we'll find that suddenly TV companies will drop support for them, and only make it available for the minority of Apple TV users. The same happened in the phone market, and the industry's idea of moving the press, TV and film online is to make it so you can "watch on your ipad" that most of us don't have. Usually it's the case that they love Apple - a match made in heaven when it comes to controlling and locking down media, and blocking out the more popular platforms.