@Rampant Spaniel

You'll always have a mat to stick it on that will be plugged into the mains, but what's happening now is places like airport lounges are fitting the charging mats into tables and counter tops.

Eventually you'll find public charging points pretty much wherever people sit for any length of time. Expect an increase in phone thefts.

More importantly, car manufacturers will start fitting them in vehicles, couple that with Bluetooth audio and you will be able to get in the car, pop your phone in a holder of some type, then use it as an audio source while charging it without messing about with any leads at all. And best of all, when you change phone all of that stuff carries on working, you don't need new adapters and leads.

Basically, don't be put off by the clunkyness of the current offerings, the main promise of wireless charging is where it can be integrated into everyday things.

Re: Nice to see some objectivity

I think the limited availability of LTE and the expense of EE's service in the UK is probably keeping away the two biggest sectors of the BB market (Suits and Da Youf), which is probably why they're not pushing it very hard.

It might get onto the front page in six months when the coverage is better and businesses think about using the network, but that will very much depend on whether or not it shows signs of taking off.

To keep in with El Reg's tradition of providing anecdotal evidence in the comments, I'd just like to say that so far no one I know is planning on getting one. Those with Blackberrys at the moment have decided they're not impressed and are off to Android or Apple, those who had Blackberrys are not coming back because they can't see any advantage over their current smartphone.

And the appointment of Alicia Keys as Creative Director just makes them look like one of those stuffy politicians trying desperately to look cool by saying they're into whatever the current hot singer/group is.

Re: Don't want you pictures / Info used and abused?

Not simple, unfortunately.

Any pictures you don't delete from the service by the 16th Jan are also to be deemed to fall under these conditions. Which sounds fine, but if the pictures have comments from other users or have been re-shared they *can't* be deleted.

Personally, as an amateur photographer I'd be quite happy to let them use my pictures if they shared the royalties with me, but I'm not giving them my work for free. I've heard that's what's wrong with downloading movies from bittorrent, we can't really have it both ways, can we?

Luckily, I only joined the service very recently so I have (or rather had) about six pictures that I have now deleted. If I upload anything in future I will make sure it has a proper copyright notice and something stating it's not for commercial use (or similar) without proper written consent.

At the very least it would create a grey area that possible licensees will probably stay away from or might at least get me involved in any commercial discussions.

Mind you, once the media companies that use this service to make their clients "hip" get word of this I expect more than a little fur to fly.

Depends on the location. Not all Apple stores are in malls and not all malls have floor to ceiling glass in their stores (like Apple prefer to do). So sometimes Apple stores stand out a lot from their neighbours and sometimes they don't.

What they do tend to have is space, even when busy you can usually walk around them quite easily, whereas most technology stores I've visited barely have room for one person between some of the aisles, let alone space for you to get passed someone else.

Couple that space with the (often over-bright) lighting and the light colours used throughout the store you get a feeling of a light and airy, certainly compared with other retail stores.

This is purely a personal observation and does vary depending on the local area, some stores hardly stand out at all.

Re: 10 years per indictment would be good

You're making an equally absurd point.

If you've lost the key then the authorities are compelled to either use physical force to open the safe or search your property to find the key.

If you lose or forget a password on encryption key, then the assumption is that you're actually refusing to give them the information because, as we all know, people never forget passwords. You may be in a position where you genuinely have nothing to hide but are completely unable to prove it and get sent to prison as a result.

Feel better?

Re: I don't get it...

Without giving any significant thought, maybe a "word of the day" that you can then tweet?

Not vital functionality, granted, but entirely in keeping with the current vogue of linking every tiny thing to Twitter and FarceBook.

@JDX

There's theoretically nothing wrong with it, but to do it without asking me, without giving me any control over the content, without allowing me to see what the privacy controls are set to, allowing me to change them or allowing me to delete it is completely unconscionable.

This would be better served by something created on the fly when you want to look at it that could also be turned into a page if you want, not something like this.

@ElReg!comments!Pierre

It's probably a good job that you're not a lawyer because it doesn't make them liable as far as common sense is involved.

Apple's model is that of a monopolised shop, similar to the one Amazon operates for the Kindle, neither of them make a rights-grab for copyright or trademarks of the things they sell through that shop, because that would be a sure-fire way of having nothing to sell.

The Lodsys case (which is what I presume you are referring to with your claim that Apple is over-stretching its licensing agreements) concerns a patent that Apple licensed to use in their OS as part of the standard API. Having licensed it to Apple (and Google amongst others), Lodsys then went on to try and claim monies from any developer who called that API.

This wasn't a case of Apple claiming their license extended to app developers, it was a case of a patent troll trying to make some extra money by trying to claim that it didn't. Lodsys targeted developers of many platforms, but if you never read beyond the Apple-biased click-bait headlines, then I guess you wouldn't know that.

In the end Lodsys backed down because it turned out that they didn't actually have a case under first-sale doctrine.

Re: cycles

Aristocrats and royals are a really bad example, they were (are?) usually put together for political reasons and then from misguided feelings of social superiority, not because of any physical or mental capability.

The other problem is that while physical characteristics are often transferred (two tall parents usually produce tall offspring, for example), mental ones seem to be a bit more hit and miss. I know as many smart people with dumb kids and dumb people with smart kids as I do smart-smart and dumb-dumb families.

In one of them (QuickQuid, I think) you could clearly see the actress dying inside as she delivered the spiel.

Re: The POI are generally wrong though

While I agree that having both A roads an motorways in the same colour is unhelpful, why do you think that the Highway Code is an authority on map colours?

If I were to pick an authority in the UK I think I'd go with Ordinance Survey, who are currently changing colour schemes because the previous one makes the colours indistinguishable for many people who are colour blind, so your favourite colour scheme will likely vanish from use in a few years.

Re: Bleurgh

Because the company makes money and then pays money on the profit with corporation tax.

Look, it's perfectly straightforward.

Current system:

Cost of delivering item to customer: 50p

Markup: 50p

Selling price to customer: £1.20 (50p+50P + 20p VAT @ 20%)

Corporation tax: 10p (let's say 10% to keep the calculations simple)

Under current system, company gets 40p (markup minus corporation tax) and gubmint gets 30p (VAT plus corporation tax).

Proposed system with 0% corporation tax and 10% sales tax (to replace corporation tax):

Cost of delivering item to customer: 50p

Markup: 50p

Selling price to customer: £1.30 (50p+50P + 20p VAT @ 20% + 10p sales tax @ 10%)

Corporation tax: 0p

Company gets 50p, gubmint gets 40p and you just paid an extra 10p. What a great idea.

Yes, they could opt to reduce their profit to keep the final price down, but do you believe for one single second that they would?

Re: adverts aside

I thought the same thing until I stayed at a Ramada last night.

Rock solid internet connection that runs at around 10-50k (yes, k).

Took about 4 hours to bring up GMail. Reliability isn't everything.

Re: Not worried.

>Cartoon versions with Mickey and Donald Duck, anyone?

In a shocking twist, Daisy turns out to be Donald's sister and they've both full of Mickeychlorians.

I can't wait for Star Wars: LIve. The Musical. On Ice.

"Which sounds like a logical argument until you realise that the only official way to use an iAnything is through purchasing from Apple's store, where they take a pretty cut from the revenue."

Except that this argument is as old as the hills and still not true.

There are apps for Kindle, Lovefilm, Netflix, Spotify and Zinio to name a few, all of which allow you to use content you purchased directly from them (yes, you can also buy via Apple in some cases).

In fact, most of these apps are also available on Android, so it's somewhat ironic that the Android-based Kindle is probably one of the most restricted tablets out there.

Re: So, Refund on my TV licence.....

Yes, no problem.

Let's see, development cost about 50p, so your share should be in the region of 0.000000008p

Would cash be OK?

You can collect it in person from any BBC office.

Re: Failure of understanding

Quick update.

Called EE direct and was told that I can switch (yippee!).

All I have to do is buy out my existing contract (at a 33% discount) and take out a new contract with them.

So, not exactly what I had expected "switch" to mean. In fact, not much different than if I wanted to take my business elsewhere.

Anyone know who's going to be online next? I might "switch" to them instead.

Re: Apple Specific Problem

No, Nokia handsets have operated in a similar way for a good few years too.

The manufacturer does the unlocking on the request of the network that the phone was locked to in the first place.

For Apple, the network tells them to unlock the phone & it's done next time to plug into a computer (may now be OTA).

For Nokia, the network tells them to unlock the phone & they send the unlock code to the network who then send it out as a SIM update message.

The only real difference is because of the way the locking is implemented, Nokia's method has been "cracked" and can be done via unauthorised third parties on the high street and Apple's needs you to first jailbreak the phone.

Both methods can lead to the phone being re-locked if you update the firmware.

Maybe not, I had a call claiming to be from Orange a few days ago.

I became suspicious when they claimed I was due to come out of contract in about 45 days (no, it's about a year) and asked me to confirm my address, but gave my old address which I had corrected with Orange about a month ago.

In summary, I believe they were actually a third party, but I also believe they got my information from Orange.

Re: Not a new concept

Quite right, tiered storage has been around for years, but I think this may be the first time I've seen it on a consumer desktop.

That hybrid drive isn't tiered storage, it's a disk with a big cache, they're not the same thing.

Re: Missing info in the article

The linked-to article notes that the patent may be invalidated because of that one (Lira) and U.S. Patent No. 7,786,975 (Ording), which belongs to Apple.

I really have no idea what the legal position is when you have a patent on something and then try to patent something obvious that derives from that. Other than very messy, that is.

Re: Fanboiz

Yes, I'm pretty sure the "iPad Mini" was a regular rumour about every six months after the original iPad was announced.

I think Jobs said the 7" form factor made the screen feel cramped, but that may well have been down to the limitations of the screen technology available at the time (i.e. when they were developing, 5+ years ago).

I guess it's the same as using an old laptop with a 15" screen that can only manage 800x600 in comparison to something modern that does 1440x900 or even 1920x1200.

Re: Storm in a teacup

>that's how grown-ups play these days.

No, that's how six year old's play and always has been, proper grown-ups are pragmatic and willing to compromise, but there are fewer and fewer of them around these days.

We (and I do mean this collectively) appear to be losing our ability to empathise and tolerate differing points of view.

We're in deep poo.

Re: But why would you want to?

Those probably aren't all of the versions and all of the prices.

If it's anything like previous versions, those prices will be for "ordinary" users and if you need some of the specialist functions (being able to write to external media, for example), then you'll need to fork out of the Ultimate or "Super-Pro" or something edition at £300 a time.

I'm going to guess that the Ultimate edition will be the one that lets you change the default interface from the pretty boxes to something usable.

Re: Wait, what did he say?

What were the high quality alternatives that were available at the time?

<Bangs head against wall>

Lets see, there was a huge number of paper maps, probably about a dozen portable satnavs (TomTom being the best known), commercial routing software like AutoRoute or the AA one (can't remember what that was called), some cheap ones that often came for free when you bought a PC and online services like StreetView (now defunct).

If you wanted something for a mobile device you had a choice of mobile applications for PDA or phone from TomTom, Garmin and NavTec as well as crowd-source stuff that was (frankly) pants.

When Google Maps launched, it offered basic maps of the kind you would find on a low budget satnav, it did not even have a complete set of data, never mind fancy things like satellite view or street view.

In other words, it was worse than the other offerings at the time, in some cases significantly worse. But it got better.

Clearly, I'm not getting my argument across, I'm not saying Apple have done the right thing or trying to defend them, I'm not saying that Eric's conclusion that they should have kept GM is wrong per se, I'm saying that his line of reasoning appears to be faulty by implying that they shouldn't bother at all because it's a bit hard and there's already a product on the market.

Meanwhile, Nokia ships Nokia Maps with most of their phones, it also provides less functionality than GM, but no-one is shouting about that and I'm trying to figure out why we don't have a Saint Eric or Saint Larry icon as for some reason Google seem to be able to do no wrong in these forums.

Re: Wait, what did he say?

Well, firstly TomTom provides the data behind Apple Maps, so they haven't just started from scratch, and secondly Google Maps was widely criticized as rubbish when it launched, with numerous hilarious routing problems (such as getting from one side of London to the other via Ireland).

My point is that despite all of that, they still launched Google Maps and ~8 years later we have a pretty good product/service, yet Eric appears to be suggesting that no-one else should bother as it's a mature market.

If you follow that logic then you would never bother bringing a new product to a mature market, even if the current offerings were a bit crap because you can't always tell that they are until someone comes along with a product that shows you how things should be.

I seriously doubt this, but it is possible that in two or three years time Apple might be showing Google the way forward in mapping and routing. Of course, that only matters if you're going to be buying an Apple product, which many people here will never do anyway.

Interesting. The article makes no mention of an insurance claim, merely that he bought a new one. Tell us more about your fantasies.

Second thoughts, maybe not.

Re: eh?

> I just can't understand the business model.

It's the same one they've been trying for a good few years now.

When they launched WinCE/WinMo/WinSmall/WinWhatever they had two major selling points:

1) It looks just like your desktop PC interface.

2) It uses the same Windows kernel, so all developers have to do is re-compile and you can have access to all of the same software you use on your desktop while on the move.

Sounds like a great idea, except:

1) The desktop screen is designed for a 15" almost square screen and a mouse (I'm talking about >10 years ago), not a 3-3.5" rectangular screen being used in portrait mode with a stylus. What you get is a very cluttered and fiddly interface.

2) Mobile devices tend to use solid state storage, which is expensive, so they use as little as they can, so your bloated desktop OS needs to be cut down to fit. That meant taking out half of the API and library functions and *that* meant that you couldn't just "re-compile and go" from the desktop - even MS worked this out eventually, the pre-launch hype of being able to have MS-Office with you on the road changed to "Pocket" versions of Outlook, Word and Excel. All with about 2% of the functionality of their desktop equivalents.

All Win8 shows is that MS haven't learnt the lessons of the past and they're trying to integrate from the UI first instead of from the kernel first, which is a bit like putting a teabag and milk into a mug of cold water and then heating it all in a microwave to make tea; technically it works and you might even find some people who like it, but most people will just think you're a bit mental.

Re: Phone manufacturers have one chance to impress

Pretty much echoes my experience, I have also had two HTC phones bought SIM-free that had sod all support or updates.

I have been tempted by a couple of their handsets since then, but I'm not giving them any more money until I see some evidence of an improvement in after-sales support.

Are you listening HTC? People didn't care when you sold handsets to be re-branded by networks, but if you want to sell direct they expect some support. Who'd have thought?

Re: Pricing

I think you'll find that's what always happens, when 3G arrived the opening offers allowed 50Mb/month for £5, after the first 12 months it was £10 for 5Mb/month. 3G was around for about 4/5 years before PAYG phones were also allowed to use data, it was calls only before that.

Highest income comes from early-adopting contract customers and business as they will pay the money for the service they want.

You might not like it, and you might feel entitled to something, but this is the reality of the situation, so don't expect any cheap PAYG deals on 4G anytime in the next year or so.

"Samsung has no choice now but to fire lawyer salvo's at every new iFap that Apple launches as part of a giant war of attrition in order to wear down their cash flow through legal fees; and Samsung has the cash stockpiles to do it, too."

Erm,

Samsung cash reserves: $11bn

Apple cash reserves: $100bn

Unless they have some water-tight open-and-shut cases to make then that would appear to be quite a risky strategy.

BTW, wishful thinking from Apple haters doesn't magically improve the merits of any case they bring, make patents valid or release them from FRAND obligations for standards related patents. Just sayin'.

Re: To wit

Are you positive about that? I wasn't aware that we'd found something at absolute rest to measure it against.

Re: they came back in my office

The article says that businesses aren't buying desktops, not that they're buying tablets.

I haven't had a traditional desktop machine in over ten years now, the company I worked for (and the one I work for now) realised that as laptops provided sufficient power for most people in the organisation and that they offered some useful benefits, then it was a good idea to change the default PC to be a laptop. It was (is) still possible to get a desktop, but they're more-or-less only given to developers and people with specific needs (e.g. huge amounts of local storage for video work).

Benefits?

In the event of a power failure you don't immediately lose anything you're working on (not a significant problem for most, but was a monthly occurrence in one building I worked from).

If you have a VPN solution your workforce can operate anywhere there is an internet connection (home, customer site, emergency site, other office location, etc.).

When your technical people go to another site they retain access to their desktop and all of their tools that they are familiar with and have spent years configuring just they way they want them, so they are more effective.

Re: Re:purloined files - other providers

I guess that depends on how much of a fan you are, if you're a bit hard-core and like to spend time discussing shows with other fans online, then this is a big problem.

I'm enjoy watching F1 and although I'm not fanatical about watching races live or discussing it online, I wouldn't want to be waiting 6+ months to watch a race either.

Ultimately, if I pay for the TV channel that will be showing it anyway, but "pirate" it to watch when I want, where is the *actual* harm as opposed to the technical infringement?

Only if they don't go bust paying their lawyers first.

Re: Internet Explorer is not a religion!

Are you absolutely sure about that?

It's a bit Anglican, in that no-one really believes in it, but it's the default option if you don't think about things too much. Or possibly Catholic, in that you use it because that's what your parents gave you to use (and you feel a bit guilty about it).

Opera on the other hand is a bit more..... shall we say "Scientologist"?

Re: Why can't they...

I don't think they are engaged by the ambulance chasers, they sell on the "leads". The ambulance chasers are supposed to find out if the lead has come from a legitimate place *before* using it, but (of course) in practice that's pretty much impossible to do.

The chasers will check with the people they contact and do stop using leads from companies who use these spamming tactics, but these barstewards just move on to another ambulance chaser and then after a few months change the name of their company before going around the loop again.

Ultimately there's only two workable ways of stopping these g!ts:

1) Prevent ambulance chasers from taking leads from any third parties. Biggest problem with this is that there are also a great many legitimate sources.

2) People stop responding to the texts, so there is no money to be made. Biggest problem with this is that lots of people are greedy and stupid.

Sometimes you can get lucky, one of these guys texted me repeatedly, but made the mistake of providing a web site address that could be used to respond as well as replying to the text.

One quick lookup on the internet later and I had his name, company address *and* the names of all his spamming companies, which I then sent to the ICO. Haven't had a text from him in about two months now.

Re: Sorry for the dumb question...

And in case you missed the announcement on the 11th, they've completed the merge of the physical T-Mobile + Orange networks and are going to change the network ID to EE, so customers from both networks will be on EE before the end of the year.

In other words, even if you do nothing you'll be on Everything Everywhere.

Re: EU

> it is the SPIRIT of the directive that is important, and that's where Apple have failed.

Have they really?

I thought the SPIRIT of the directive was to stop people throwing away their old and perfectly serviceable charger when they got a new phone because the chargers changed both the connectors and power delivery between handsets - even those from the same manufacturer.

All the phones I have had since that directive have come with a mains->USB "charger" and a USB->phone cable that can be used to charge the device as well as sync with a computer. As a result of this I've only thrown away one charger and only because it stopped working. When I get a new phone now, I just try it with my existing cables, or use the new cable with all of my existing chargers; the chargers for my last two handsets are still in the boxes, unused. Always handy to have spares.

Would that be the same mobile industry executives that insist on replacing perfectly functional firmware on handsets with something that's been badly scarred with network branding and had half of the most useful features removed?

I hope you will forgive me if I don't value their opinion on what makes a good phone.

Re: Main Reason

That'll be some time around 2020 if the pattern of 3G deployment & pricing is anything to go by.

@Captain Scarlet

It seems to be Orange's back-haul that's the problem.

My personal phone is on Orange & my work phone is on O2, but as both handsets are unlocked I can test each network with each handset, so I've just done that (again).

O2 gives ~120ms ping, ~4.5Mbps download and ~1Mbps upload with Speedtest on both handsets.

Orange gives ~90ms ping, ~2.2Mbps download and ~0.3Mbps upload on both handsets.

So, essentially, no significant difference due to handset, but the "biggest" network is by far the slowest. I've tried these test elsewhere in the country (I travel a lot) and the results are almost in the same vein; Orange is usually half the bandwidth of O2, but has lower latency. I've never had any trouble with connectivity or maintaining a connection, so I'm leaning towards the front end kit being good enough and there being insufficient bandwidth at the back end, but I have no evidence to support that theory.

Re: Not quite true…

>given Apple's lack of interest in their official app.

IIRC, Google provided both the YouTube and Maps applications that Apple bundled into the OS, so I suspect the lack of love is just as likely to have come from Google; especially as Apple may well have insisted they don't put ads into something that will be built into the OS.

There is a far more straightforward reason why Apple would remove Google apps from the OS. Anything shipped with the OS will need to be tested with the OS, meaning you have to give the third party early access to the OS. Since Google are a competitor, it seems likely that Apple have just been treading water until contracts expire so they can stop giving Google access to all of their development plans.

Of course, that will only really become clear if iOS 7 makes any significant leaps forward next year.