re: substantial moral backlash in the mainstream press

I've not seen that. All I've seen is a load of "Apple win patent case over Samsung" articles. Those who look will find the evidence that Apple are likely to lose this case in the end, but for those reading the "mainstream press", in the UK at least, the trial is being portrayed as a massive victory for Apple.

Re: but don't want the phone part of it.

It's a shot in the dark, but maybe you could get one but not use it as a phone?

Re: Categorizing any group of people is bigoted

Typical comment from the stupid anonymous cowards on here.

re: I won't be updating my iPad until google release a native app.

What will that give you that you don't get from installing the web app?

Re: Maps must be fun

'elderly, confused', rooted it same afternoon. You're lying abou the "elderly, confused" bit arent' you?

I can't even switch the fucking GPS on on my android phone without submitting "anonymous info" to google. And yes, that's with the wi-fi location disabled before any smartarses tell me I don't know what I'm doing. If that info was really anonymous it'd be of no value whatsoever to google (it's just a pair of coordinates).

Google are a bunch of bastards when i comes to respecting peoples privacy. It's my phone, it's my GPS, why the fuck can't I turn it on without telling gooogle where I am?

Re: Apple has peaked

Wow bob, that's an interesting point that i've never heard before. If someone guessed apple would sell 10 million phones in 3 days (and we're talking about professional guessers who are always right, obv) and then apple only sell 5 million, well that must mean apple are doomed. And I thought they'd just grow for ever, expanding out into the universe bringing iProducts to all the space aliens. You've certainly taught me a thing or two about economics.

Yes, I am being sarcastic.

Re: have you read the review?

yes I have read the review. I don't think it came over as particularly OTT.

I am a little concerned for the state of your marriage though. Maybe you should get an iPhone...

Re: Who cares?

Anyone trying to make money by selling apps.

Re: This may be tongue in cheek...

Or, maybe, and this is a total shot in the dark but try and bear with me and see if it's at all possible, the person writing the review really liked the phone?

Re: @sabroni they don't count all GMail users as active G+ users

Jesus, are you just being deliberately obtuse? The quote says "from the start of 2012". GMail had plenty of users before the start of 2012, only the new ones are silently co-opted into Google+. The article never stated "all gmail users", I made it perfectly clear I wasn't talking about "all gmail users". In the words of the T-shirt "I can explain it to you, I can't understand it for you"...

Re: Hmmm revenues?

Right, that's why everyone was getting so pissy further up the thread, there's fuck all money to be made in the Android store. I mean sheeple have more cash than sense, obv...

Re: That's nice for Google

How much do developers make on Android apps? It's better not to ask, apparently some people get a little touchy if you do.... Why could that be?

Re: Non-story

Party pooper! The thought of vigilante freetards was much funnier than your common sense explanation!

I hope you're proud of yourself!

Re: @Sabroni I thing that the low IQ stereotype has several foundations.

I don't buy it. No current phone OS that I've come across makes getting to a command line easy. Apart from a CLI all the other things you mention would benefit from a simple easy to use interface.

There may be a die hard clique of computer nerds somewhere who want a complex and bloated phone interface (there's you at least), but arguing that people who don't want that have a low IQ is preposterous. Making things difficult for yourself isn't clever.

Re: @Sabroni I thing that the low IQ stereotype has several foundations.

Let me just expand that quote for you:

>> The interfaces are dumbed down to a level that even a cat could use one. - Ie You dont have to be a genie to use one, this could be seen as good or as bad. <<

So I don't understand why you think a cat can use iOS, or what being a genie has to do with it, and although you try to spin it as a bad thing by saying "dumbed down" you're actually just saying that it's a really easy interface to use. So the bit I don't understand is why you think anyone would consider an easy to use interface bad.

Re: I thing that the low IQ stereotype has several foundations.

That list says a lot more about your prejudices than it does about iPhone users and their IQs...

I particularly like that a good user interface is a "dumbed down" one. Because presumably if you have to have a massive IQ to work out how to use your phone that's a good thing.

Pompous buffoon.

Re: Apple has peaked.

Did it really? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rF_nuy8zSo4

Using android phone as a sat nav

Yeah me too. Pity my sony erricson android came with a number of different mapping apps and for the first couple of times I used it to navigate I was just a moving arrow on a map that stayed aligned North. Still, I found a better app now with proper turn by turn. Of course to launch it correctly I have to come from another app, using the route app itself to specify the route doesn't seem to work.

And I do enjoy skipping the message that tells me to install some speaking software so I can hear the route, especially as it always appears while I'm listening to the phone read the route to me...

If I'd have paid for this experience I'd be pretty vexed. Luckily it's a work phone so as it cost me nothing it can get away with being a bit pants....

Re: And long may this piss taking continue

Yeah, only 5 million in 3 days. Bet they're bricking it, it's only a million more than the 4s....

Oh, hang on, no, those are sales figures that every other handset manufacturer would kill for. So not actually definitive proof that the apple bubble has burst at all, some would say quite the opposite...

Re: Ted Treen, 13:58

I believe asdf was comparing Steve Jobs to Bill Gates, both of whom are/were incredibly rich. Bill Gates is trying to use his massive wealth to do good (however misguided and inept he may be at it) whereas Jobs didn't, or at least not as publicly.

I would imagine that an asdf fund to help humanity wouldn't have the same financial clout as Bill's, we don't tend to have too many mega-millionaires on here (though judging by some of the recent posts there are a fair few rich boys...)

The thing with Gates and Jobs is they could both give half their fortunes away and still be minted. So it seems fair to call Jobs a cheapskate and qualify it with a reference to Gate's charitable foundation.

Re: Amazing

The problem with your argument is how you go from 50% to 10%. You seem to think that the way to restrict the numbers is to make sure that only the rich can afford to go to university. I would argue that it's more important to encourage the less well off to get a degree, as their prospects are often worse.

Re: Users will still be able to access Google maps via the web on the Safari browser.

iOS uses an unofficial protocol of "maps://" to identify links to the mapping service. Last time I looked it interpreted "maps://maps.google.com" as a link to the local mapping app, ignoring the domain. However replacing "maps://" with "http://" would still take you to google maps, so app developers could hard wire their apps to go to google that way. (Of course getting apple to put an updated app that does this in the store might be tricky. And they did appear to be chopping and changing their map handling in previous betas of iOS 6 so I'm not 100% sure that this is still the case.) Could be a stopgap till apple maps catch up... Or a massive waste of effort... YMMV!

Re: Why are the homeless poor surfing RegHardware?

How dare these peasants be interested in my premium apple products! Can't we have some kind of pay as you comment structure on here to keep the riff raff out? It's getting jolly crusty in here, what what!

Re: What I want to know is...

probably because they want to charge you again to download them. That's how gameboy games work on 3DS...

Re: "it's probably even further out of date in terms of hardware than the Wii was at launch"

>>their previous product barely bloody works<<

In what way doesn't it work? I've had one since launch and it works fine.

>>its library of games are crap,<<

I disagree, I have a massive pile of wii games, a lot of them wii exclusives. Xenoblade and Rhythm Paradise are two relatively recent ones not available on any other platform.

I am trying to understand your viewpoint, but shouting "it's crap" doesn't really give me much to go on...

Re: Craigness

From the article: At the start of 2012, Google quietly began opting every new user signing up to Gmail directly into Google+

I guess that would explain the numbers.

@JDX

Judging by the article it looks like an active user is someone who's using gmail and didn't delete their google+ account...

Re: It sure is.

Could it be no one mentions Microsoft's social network figures because they don't issue press releases going on about them?

@ TeeCee and TestMan

but Google Chrome installs itself into the users AppData folder, not a users program files folder, so surely my original statement that this is not the windows way is correct? The clue is in the name....

@ Nick Ryan "this is the windows way"

no, it's not. It's the way Chrome gets round the (admittedly poor) windows security model. The windows way is to run an install program and stick the executable somewhere in the "program files" folder.