Electromagnetic interference

When I was evaluating my options for tablets I would go to HMV in Islington at lunchtime and spend a little time playing with each of the Android tabs and the iPad.

One thing that I immediately found strikingly obvious was that often the keyboards did not seem to pick up my key presses when typing quickly. I called the shop assistant over and asked if they really were this bad. He laughed and told me if i picked up the tablet and put it on something else, it'd work fine - I did this, putting it down on a cardboard box and low and behold, it picked up every key press with no delay. This happened on ALL of the tablets.

It turns out this is a problem with capacitive touch screens and interference. In HMV they put all of their tech on this large metal bench, alongside countless other bits and bobs like speakers and laptops. When the tablet is laid flat on the desk, the interference screws up the touchscreen.

Incidentally, i ended up buying an iPad and can touch-type like nobodies business on it with no problems at all.

Physics and inertia

Have they fixed the physics so it actually feels like the original Sonic? In the real 2D Sonic games from days-of-yore you needed some skill to keep him moving, if you messed up and found yourself at the bottom of a slope with no momentum you'd have to move back and take a run up. The last Sonic game was atrocious, all of the feeling of momentum and inertia was gone, Sonic felt like he was filled with helium...

Val Thorens

I was in the French alps over xmas, at it's coldest it went down to -22 and my iPhone 4 was absolutely fine, I was (perhaps irresponsibly) snowboarding while holding the camera filming in HD. It also got pretty damp too.

On a side note, while a little worse for wear, I once dropped my iPhone 3GS in a puddle. It lay completely submerged underwater, with the screen still lit up. I fished it out and wiped it on my jeans. No problems whatsoever!

The iPhone's I've had have been by far the toughest phones I've owned for this sort of thing.

On the topic of games console integration

Remember the Amstrad Mega PC?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_Mega_PC

A friend had one at the time... it was basically just the components of the Megadrive shoved into a beige enclosure alongside a pretty naff PC. How incredible we thought it was... ahh.

Valid comments

But I do think you're being rather hysterical. As you rightly point out on the first page and the final line "only if you should so choose," Mac users will be able to choose whether to buy from the App Store or from outside of it. 'Most won't' because they'll be interested in convenience, and think of the increased revenue for applications which otherwise might never have been discovered - it would be difficult to argue that revenue for developers has not increased hugely on mobile devices since the App Store was launched.

The fact is, provided Apple do not put up the walls and lock the gates, only allowing users to buy through their app store (which in my opinion will never happen), the app store is just going to be a useful way to discover decent applications and for everything else, it'll be exactly the same.

Hype machine

Could i just point out to everyone who says Apple creates massive hype around their product launches, that they in fact do quite the opposite. They keep absolutely dead quiet about it until it's pretty much launched. At this point they do one keynote speech and a handlful of advertising spots on TV.

Look at the iPad, I only saw adverts for it a few days before launch yet it was 'hyped' for years... but who did that? Certainly not Apple, they denied its existence till the keynote. All the hype is done by speculating fans on the internet. By keeping quiet, Apple allows this to work into a frenzy. The fact that people on here are getting so incredibly angry, or excited, about a mobile phone is testiment to how well this works.

USB Freeview HD

Is there any indication as to when these might be available? i have a Win7 media centre running on a laptop

I have the 27" 3.06ghz dual core

It's my second, as the first one had the flickering screen. I received some of the best customer service I've ever encountered when contacting Apple for a replacement. They admitted fault immediately, told me there was a problem with the hardware and I took it back to the store to be given a new replacement within five minutes of arriving, complete with gushing apology. Better still I only brought back the machine, not the accessories, so I gained an extra magic mouse and wireless keyboard in the process.

This one has been absolutely perfect since I got it a month ago and I love it to pieces. I wonder just how bad this problem really is - after all, those without a problem don't shout about it.

I'm afraid to say

I use ad blockers largely because of news sites, and a particularly bad offender for irritating flashing and animated ads is The Register. I absolutely can't stand to have some fit inducing commercial beside a piece of text I want to read. I like Google's idea that ads will get less annoying, I certainly feel no need to block ads on their search pages, and occasionally they are useful.

@The BigYin

Perhaps you need glasses? There's an enormous difference between Bluray and DVD. My two year old Bravia looks stunning in HD, and there's no motion ghosting at all.

@ Andrew Martin

Take it back to the shop, they may well replace it for you - I have a friend that did exactly that with a Macbook.