* Posts by Gradivus

26 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Aug 2009

Smartwatch sales off to a very slow start

Gradivus

Jewellery

You hit the nail on the head, Ledswinger, when you say your Seiko looks smart.

Some people wear watches to tell the time, some wear them as jewellery, most people a bit of both. Unless smartwatches improve enormously and get some true functionality of their own, they'll only ever appeal to anorak-wearing geeks and nerds.

Remember "digital watches" of the 1970s? Even the geeks and nerds were soon too embarrassed to wear those.

I can see them possibly (perhaps) catching on as sports accessories, but no more.

But we'll wait and see IF the Apple rumours are true. Apple have form when it comes to redefining markets.

Apple to flush '£37bn' down the bog if it doesn't flog cheapo slabtops

Gradivus

Another analyst. Another incredibly stupid statement

Quote: "we believe that most use the iPad as a supplemental device to either a laptop or desktop PC. If iAnywhere allowed these users to flexibly use an iPad as both a PC and a tablet, we believe that many would elect to own simply one device"

So, Apple, you must change your strategy so that people buy only ONE of your products and not TWO as they do at present.

These analysts do make me laugh. What would we do without them?

Microsoft: You've got it all WRONG. It's Apple's iPad playing catch-up with our Surface

Gradivus

Lightweight productivity apps?

Are the iWork apps lightweight? Yes they are, compared to MS Office.

But.. the iWork apps are perfectly ADEQUATE for the vast majority of people. I've used MS Office for many, many years (I was teaching people to use it for a couple of years) and yet there are loads and loads of features that I never or rarely use. Take Excel Pivot Tables, for example; of the hundreds(?) of people I know at work there is only one, yes only one, who uses pivot tables regularly (and that's mostly to show off!).

Shaw has missed the point. Apple are providing what the majority of people want - simple, easy-to-use, uncomplicated apps that do the basics competently. Saying they are lightweight is actually a compliment.

Sky falling: 119,000 Brits flee O2, Be after Murdoch broadband gobble

Gradivus

news@gradivus.co.uk

It's actually 119,001 not 119,000.

I too am leaving. Just haven't got round to it yet.

Living in the middle of a big city? Your broadband may still be crap

Gradivus
Unhappy

Why me?

I can see my telephone exchange from my kitchen window.

I can, just about, read the registration numbers on the OpenReach vans.

The exchange is enabled and is providing fibre access to most of the region.

But not me

I must have offended them in some way

Paying a TV tax makes you happy - BBC

Gradivus

Re: NZ Has No TV Tax

Perhaps ITV does good quality drama BECAUSE it's in competition with the BBC?

The licence fee is worthwhile if only to push the other broadcasters into upping their game a bit.

Apple files 'Shake to Print' iOS patent application

Gradivus
Megaphone

Why is Apple so slavish to gimmicks these days?

I've been an admirer of Apple products for very many years now (though my attitude is much too down-to-earth to describe myself as a fanboy).

But in recent years, much of what Apple has introduced are gimmicks pure and simple. I'd so liked to have been a fly on the wall when some numpty said "I know, let's invest lots of costly programming resources introducing a shake-to-print feature". And the other creatures-from-another-planet in the room said, "Wow. What a good idea". The whole thing is on a par with the 1970s Allegro (for the benefit of US readers, the Allegro was a UK car with a square steering wheel. I kid you not).

My own pet hate - in iOS55 and earlier there was a refresh button for emails. Simple, so very intuitive that it was blindingly obvious. But iOS6? Drag the screen down refresh. Obscure, not remotely intuitive, probably destined to remain undiscovered by most users for years.

For heavens sake, Apple, ditch the gimmicks and give us some real improvements. I'd rather have 5 real innovations than 500 gimmicks.

Don't get het up about patents. I mean, who the £%*@ would want to copy this idea?

Windows Phone 8: What Nokia and Microsoft must do

Gradivus

Hip, hip, hooray

Quote - This makes the app-centric design of Android and iOS look quite clumsy

Brilliant. Excellent. This will be a short post because i must go and dance in the street! I've been banging on about this for years, and at long last a professional commentator has picked up on it.

Back in the 1980s when Macs were young, the KEY thing that made them so much, much better than the other @*!$ operating systems out there is that they were uniquely DOCUMENT CENTRIC. Nobody gives a tinker's cuss about the app, it's your document that is important.

Thirty years on, Apple is dedicated to apps. In fact Apple has spent thirty years going in completely the wrong direction. OSX Mountain Lion and iOS5 = good old MS-DOS with a fancy interface.

Bill Gates: iPad is OK, but what Apple really needs is a SURFACE

Gradivus

Or maybe we need a new term: maybe we'll just called them 'Surface-like devices'.

No, Bill. We'll just call them rubbish.

Third of Blighty stuck on snail-speed broadband

Gradivus

There is something very seriously wrong with the UK's "Broadband Industry"

There is something very seriously wrong with the UK's "Broadband Industry"

I pay for an "up to 24Mbps" service.

I've bought the "latest and greatest" modem.

If I stand up I can see the telephone exchange outside my window.

I get 7.45Mbps.

BT seeks apartment dwellers to sign-up to 'superfast' FTTP trial

Gradivus

news@gradivus.co.uk

But would we really get 100Mbps?

I can see my telephone exchange through my kitchen window. With a bit of effort, I could probably throw stones and break the windows of the Openreach vans in the carpark.

My ISP offers me "up to 24Mbps". What speed have I been getting all day? 3.26Mbps.

Yes, that's right, 3.26Mbps.

So, let's do the maths and scale up. Oh, that means with this new fibre whatsit I could get 13Mbps.

Whoopy doopy do.

World's first biz computer was British – and sold teacakes

Gradivus

and then...

... ICL was bought by Fujitsu. Fujitsu left it alone until the losses became truly eye watering. Fujitsu then stepped in, took control, dropped the name ICL and rebranded it as Fujitsu.

Oh, and they also turned the company around making it consistently profitable.

It's now one of the "top five" IT companies worldwide.

Just shows what a little Japanese magic can do!

Gradivus

LEO - Lyons Electronic Office

If memory serves me right...

When Lyons "upgraded" to a new, better machine, the original LEO went to the Dept of Social Security (or whatever it was called that week).

In doing so it became the immediate forerunner of what was, at the time, one of the biggest IT systems in the world.

Compact Disc death foretold for 2012

Gradivus

Hello? Hello? Is there anyone there?

Are we talking here about the music industry that has just moved into the 20th century?

The same music industry that resisted downloads so hard and so bitterly for so long?

The same music industry that wants governments, indeed anyone, to protect its property rights rather than moving into the 21st century and updating its business model?

The same industry that seems to think it has a God-given right to massive profits for doing very little?

The same industry that is still kicking and screaming about DRM?

Nah. I'd say the CD will die in 2037 at the very earliest.

What's not in the iPhone 4S ... and why

Gradivus

Get a Grip!

Come on The Register, get a grip!

How many people in the UK give a Tinker's Cuss about CDMA? How many had heard of it until this week? I came across it for the very first time only a few months ago, and I consider myself 'above average' with tecchie stuff. How many people would use it even if they could? I'd reckon 0.1% at most.

And NFC. Do you really believe it will seriously catch on in the next two years? To the extent that iPhone users will feel disadvantaged?

Ten reasons why you shouldn't buy an iPhone 5

Gradivus

And for my next Ten Reasons...

So, TEN REASONS WHY YOU SHOULDN'T BUY AN IPHONE.

Very interesting.

Now produce an article called -

TEN REASONS WHY THE IPHONE OUTSELLS THE COMPETITION.

That would be interesting!

Bury council defends iPads for binmen

Gradivus

High tech over common sense

Hmm.

The cheapest 3G iPad is £499. Plus the bespoke cost of designing, writing and implementing an appropriate app, (there aren't many BuryBins apps on the App Store), maintaing that app, training the bin men to use the app, training the office-based staff to update the data in the app, plus testing, plus ongoing data networking costs, plus.... I reckon the quoted £9k is a very serious underestimate of the overall cost.

Conversely, you can buy a mobile phone for £4.95 plus a £10 top-up. No apps, no IT costs, no training, no data networking costs apart from another £10 top-up every few months.

And how does the office-based council officer find out about a missed bin? The householder telephones him. So the office-based council officer rings the bin wagon driver and says, "Bob, you've missed no 27 Alexander Street. Pop back and get it can you, please?". And would that be quicker than updating an IT-iPad-app-based, town-wide, 3G, broadcast system? Yes it would.

So a few £4.95 mobiles would save the "tens of thousands" that you quote, AND it would save the £9k that so many of us are 'mumping about'.

High tech solutions are rarely the answer to low tech problems.

Gradivus

Wouldn't 22 basic mobile phones achieve the same result?

Wouldn't 22 basic mobile phones achieve the same result?

Or do the council officers and bin men lack the power of speech?

End of UK local dialling in sight as numbers run out

Gradivus

Yes but...

Yes, very interesting. And I'm certainly NOT having a go at you personally, J.G.Harston.

But the telephone was invented in the 19th century. I suspect decision tree switching was also introduced in the 19th century. Many of us now live in the 21st century. A full 135 years since the telephone was invented.

It doesn't have to be like this. The world has changed enormously in the last 135 years. OFCOM really should be making some bold decisions to move UK telephony, at least into the 20th century, if not into the 21st century.

Gradivus

Luddites

No. I'm not a fully qualified carrier-trained telephony network engineer. And, to be honest, I'm glad I'm not.

But I DO know that our eleven digit telephone numbers give us 100 billion unique numbers. And in a country of around 60 million that should be enough.

The telephone was introduced in the 19th century. We now live in the 21st century. It's about time our 'fully qualified carrier-trained telephony network engineers' joined us.

Gradivus

People, not businesses

Yes, what you say is true, but sadly is a red herring. Ultimately telephone numbers are all about people, not companies.

The company I work for employs 13,000 people in the UK. So it will need 13,000 telephone numbers. OK, a few more because some people might do different work at different times of day and the company might want them to have different numbers for their different roles. And some of those 13,000 (around a quarter, perhaps) will be mobile workers and will need a mobile number.

But the point is, each and every telephone number in the UK is ultimately linked to a PERSON; be it landline, mobile, fax, ADSL, smartphone, iPad, emergency panic alarm, etc.

And I've tried and tried but cannot see how any one PERSON would need, or indeed could cope with, more than a dozen or so phone numbers. And remember roughly half of our 60 million population are children or elderly, who will be content with one or two numbers.

Gradivus

How many numbers do we need?

UK telephone numbers puzzle me. My landline telephone number has eleven digits. That gives (theoretically) one hundred thousand million (100 billion) telephone numbers available for use in the UK.

Or, about 1,650 telephone numbers for each man, woman child and baby in the UK. Or, about 6,500 (yes, six and a half thousand) numbers for a traditional family of mum, dad and two kids.

WTF is going on here? How can we be running out of numbers?

And yes, I realise that existing telephony conventions mean that not all 100 billion are available, but many billions are.

I'm wholeheartedly behind OFCOM's plan to charge 10p per number per year. That'll cost me 60p per year (1x landline, 1x mobile, 1x 'spare' mobile, 1x international SIM, 1x work landline, 1x work mobile). Better still, make it £1 per number per year. Call me a wealthy, extravagant fool if you wish, but I suspect I'll not even notice a 60p (or £6) per year charge in amongst all my other telephony costs.

Why the banks aren't scared of the Robin Hood Tax

Gradivus

If the banks aren't scared of RHT, why not increase RHT until they are?

"we could raise humongous amounts of tax money without anyone really noticing. Figures of $400bn globally were bandied about"

Hmm. You do realise, don't you, that together Wall Street banks are forecast to pay out a record $140bn in bonuses this year. That's more than one third of the $400bn from Wall Street alone. Not counting other banks around the world. And it's staff bonuses, not profits, not turnover. It's bonuses.

Seems to me that $400bn globally is not only possible, not only reasonable, it's actually quite a small price for the industry to pay having wrecked so many lives worldwide.

O2 could impose out-of-contract iPhone lock-in

Gradivus

OFCOM? Waste of space

I, too, was certain that OFCOM insisted that phones be unlocked 'for a reasonable fee' at the end of the contract.

But apparently not. It would seem that they are determined to prove what a completely pointless organisation they are. Quote...

Most mobile service providers require a minimum service period or contract term before you can switch to another provider. If you purchased your mobile phone with the service from your current provider, you have the option of keeping your current mobile phone, however you must make sure that you do that within the contractual terms of your existing mobile phone and service.

Whether you are a post-paid (contract) or pre-paid user, you can keep your current mobile phone by requesting that the SIM lock on your mobile to be removed. Usually, mobile service providers require a minimum contract or service period to expire before they unlock your phone. Most service providers charge a fee for this service

Windows 7 OEM prices revealed

Gradivus
Happy

Tongue in cheek

Or you could get a Mac.

Snow Leopard - £25 retail.

One size fits all. Open the box and there's single disc encompassing ultimate, home, premium, home ultimate; 32 bit, 64 bit, etc. All rolled into one.

Apple blogger legally unlocks iPhone

Gradivus

You can unlock ANY phone legitimately

As far as I know OFCOM have ALWAYS insisted that carriers must unlock their phones on request. There are some conditions - the phone must be out of contract (or you can pay the remaining contractual payments), they can charge for the cost of a PAYG phone, they can levy a reasonable charge for unlocking. I think the guide to what is reasonable is less than £30.