RE: "I was wrong about needing to be logged in"
Thanks for getting back on that although I still have to say that the need to open a FB account is a dealbreaker as far as I am concerned. :)
2770 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Nov 2009
Thanks for the review - very useful. :)
Two things kill my interest in this program. 1, Not functional unless you are online. 2, You have got to have a FB account. They want you logged on all the time and they want access to your online "social life" - social engineering much?
...............the irony in my gentle tease of the author of the article (accompanied by a smiley icon FGS!). Frankly speaking, some people should get out more. The only thing I did was gently "twit" the author in a *very* friendly fashion and I get downvoted - hello`? That kind of response, in the context, is ridiculous.
..........I have the faintest suspicion that it would have been greeted in the same way.
"Here at Vulture Towers we don't claim to be shooting the breeze with the cool cats on a daily basis.............."
"..........and either we're way too old to understand what the young things are listening to these days.......".
"The cool cats"? If you guys have not yet left the beatnik era then you definitely are "way to old to understand what the young things........."!
"with even cheap feature phones packing a competent media player nowadays the death of the PMP is pretty much inevitable."
I think that that is at least as much the point here for Redmond as the Zune-player's not so stellar sales record. The smartphones and the good quality featurephones are in practice killing the stand alone media player and the compact digital camera (plus a whole list of other devices dependent on which apps the owner has installed). It simply is not worth the effort from MS' point of view.
No way for the very simple reason that the insurance companies will, if customers sit still for this, make it a condition of getting insurance at anything other than usurious premiums. In practice it amounts to putting the "spy in the cab" that lorry drivers have to accept (for a hold raft of reasons that do not apply to a private car driver - bit of a difference between driving a Ford Mondeo for a couple of hours a day and spending your entire working day a the wheel of a 32 ton "artic") into private cars without having to bother about inconvenient things like getting debated legislation through parliament and having to make/justify your case in the process.
....................in patents as if they were independent financial instruments with all that implies. Most particularly it means that large amounts of speculative money are being used to trade in a *commodity*, something patents were never originally envisioned as. In practice it means that a large amount of venture capital is being applied to parasitising the industries affected instead being available to contribute to driving innovation and development. The VCs appear in increasing degree to see this as a lower risk because they are investing in enforcing ownership of what already exists. Unless the patent system is reformed in such a fashion that speculating in patents as a commodity in themselves is severely restrained, this development will utterly strangle industrial innovation. A situation where it is extremely attractive to invest in and enforce the status quo is no recipe for innovation and progress. The current situation bids fair to ensuring that the industrial/economic system starts to stagnate completely in a mire of competing civil court cases where the competition is not over what you can make but over what you own. The principal of ownership is of course central to our economic system, however, how that is expressed and how your are permitted to enforce it is crucial in driving forward the systems "creative destruction". Unless we do something about this there is going to be far too little creation and far too much destruction with the result that we may very well see the patent system doing to society what the banking system has been doing in recent years. The price is likely to be a *very* steep one.
Possibly not, especially if an even more freshly baked set of rumours are to be believed. From the update to the article in the link:
"...............that 4.65-inch Super AMOLED HD display mentioned above is just about the only spec to make the final cut. The processor, however, is more likely to be a dual-core 1.5GHz Exynos (that's right) with an accompanying dual-core PowerVR SGX543MP2 graphics chip. That rear facing camera? Try 8 megapixels with a newly beefed up sensor. The handset should also ship with a girthy 2,050mAh battery fully capable of juicing this apparent LTE / CDMA / GSM Android monster."
http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/06/samsung-galaxy-nexus-specs-leak-headed-to-verizon-as-an-exclusi/
.......................(speech to action and text to speech for navigation and others): Ditto"
Indeed, and what is more you do not have go online to use those facilities with your GSII nor I with my Desire Z in contrast to the new and magical iPhone 4S where the eager purchaser will rapidly discover that "Siri" doesn't "just work" unless you are logged on. In fact it does not work *at all* without being online.
.......The vast majority of punters don't care about specs."
Interestingly enough *Apple* care about specs and benchmarks in their marketing. They made a big thing about comparing the 4S yesterday with several (carefully "selected") phones from the main OEMs when highlighting how "magical" the 4S (in their opinion) is. The ordinary punter may not care about the details but he/she is influenced by the reputation a phone gets - as Apple is well aware. This kind of thing is of course aimed at the media in general and reviewers in particular in order to influence the general impression that the public get. Like I said in my posting, *that* aspect of the marketing is in the process of getting significantly harder for Cupertino.
.............of this iteration of the iPhone rather less than lustrous. This was supposed to be the key software "goodie" with the 4S - the "magical" component this time round. At a time when demand for wireless bandwidth is skyrocketing, the investment in expansion of the necessary bandwidth is in no way keeping up with this and (crucially) "all you can eat data-plans" are going the way of the dodo Apple's big software/service gig for their new shiney is cloud-dependent in order to function at all! As far as hardware is concerned (with the sole exception of battery life) the 4S is behind the GSII and by the time the iPhone5 is *actually* released Sammy will have released the GSIII (or whatever they call it) and the iPhone will be behind the pace again. We are now reaching the point where the iPhone is no longer in any sense groundbreaking but is merely one of several well built smart-phones and *that* fact is going to present Apple with some marketing challenges over the next year or so.
I would not assume too much based on one set of analysts' guesstimates of the Fire's production costs. I have seen at least two other sets of figures putting it at on or around cost price. My personal gut feeling is that a fifty dollar hit sounds a bit too much - just my *guess*.
............attract sociopaths. If one needed any confirmation that that hypothesis has something going for it, this report would provide it. If it were legally possible the judge should have remanded that sucker for psychiatric evaluation before delivering the judgement. Some of these bosses should definitely be amongst the first up against a wall when the ect ect......
Likely right if we are talking about the Android os as a whole. Certainly if you were to include the San Francisco and the like (though you would probably have to go outside Android and include RIM's Blackberries to cover the ram-raiding graphic!) one could argue that the "working classes" had been included. Indeed one could if one was feeling mischievous have a lot of fun with the social/class demographics here. How about "The worker's flag is deepest orange" or, even better, the hymn of the upwardly mobile fanboi, "The working class can kiss my arse, I've got my iPhone5 at last"!
When one is conducting this type of survey where the researchers wish to be able to draw *general* conclusions about Homo Sap it is by definition essential to ensure that the population you are measuring is not heavily skewed in one direction or the other. If I were to guess I would say that the population of iPhone owners is at the very least skewed towards higher income groups and very likely culturally skewed in other ways and this is almost certainly the case with owners of high-end smartphones in general. Another example of a fine candidate for the Ignoble Prize.
The problem with that is that *no* example of "BigCorp" will disclose anything where they gain commercial advantage from secrecy unless the law requires them to do so. IMHO discosure should mandatory in law to scupper this poisonous game of liar's poker that these companies play. However, applying NDAs to these patent agreements is currently wholly legal - unfortunately.
Let us just imagine that "A Major Software Giant" decided to to buy themselves a large OEM such that they became a combined os *and* pc producer. They then set up their own dealer network and proceeded once they were doing well to destroy the basis of the business of all other retailers who had hitherto sold their products. I wonder what we would be seeing on many threads here at El Reg in response to that? One thing I am absolutely sure of is that *if* a certain company based in Redmond, Washington were to do such a thing there would be few if any postings here defending that behaviour and a huge number of postings (my own included) strongly criticising it. In the event that Cupertino's products continue to dominate the tablet market what they will end up with is owning that whole market from end to end. production of os and hardware, wholesale, retail you name it. Even at their worst behaviour in the 90s MS were never able to sew up the pc market in that way. Apple do make very good kit, I do not deny that for one split second. However, we had better hope that competitors in that pad market manage to up their game because if they do not then tablet space will become a wholly owned subsidiary (in *all* its parts) of Apple Corp. One would have to be a *seriously* uber fanboi to welcome that outcome.
Their own unconscious assumptions (political, social etc.) did not in any way influence or bias the model? I am not accusing them of dishonesty, I am just amused that they appear to believe that this kind of modelling can have any pretensions to scientific objectivity (a very difficult thing to attain even in the so-called "hard sciences"). The joke icon? Just my comment on this kind of "research".
..........understand why my post was apparently so "controversial" for a couple of people. I recall that HTC recently decided that locking the bootloader was more trouble that it was worth. Well, anyway it is up to Amazon to decide whether they want the grief or not but whatever happens it will be rooted and custom ROMs installed by very happy enthusiasts. After all at that price you would be smiling, wouldn't you!
Well, I did include in brackets "if they are sensible". Furthermore I made the point that only a small percentage of their customers are going to do this and so (as others have pointed out) it would be a waste of effort and money locking it down. I also made it pretty clear that IMO it will be rooted *however* hard they try to prevent it - the temptation will be way too much, with the result that Amazon will achieve nothing. The people who have the knowledge/inclination to do this will do it, end of.
..............it will be rooted in no time flat and if the custom ROM boys are not already cooking something up I'll eat my hat *and* yours. Amazon can after all afford to have a very relaxed attitude to this (if they are sensible). When it comes down to it how many of their customers are likely to do this, percentage-wise? It will simply generate even more "buzz" round this iteration of their Kindle line.
Given that Samsung are *plenty* big enough to show Microsoft the middle finger there is more going on here than meets the eye. There have been a number of indications recently that there are elements of cross-licensing and cross-discounting in these agreements. How much it has actually cost the various parties concerned *net* when all the bookkeeping is done and dusted is impossible to tell from the publicly available information. I also have to say that Tony Hoyle's point (which you re-emphasised) that the real losers on this merry-go-round are those companies who do not have cards to play with at the outset is something I entirely agree with. Though it does have to be pointed out that if one chooses to go into manufacturing something based on existing technology you are almost certain to end up having to pay patent royalties to *someone* regardless of which industry you are in, not just the mobile-phone business. I also have to say that whilst one *maybe* can make a case for certain elements of commercial confidentiality it should, IMHO, be directly illegal to conceal which patents are involved and what the legal basis of the settlement is. The current system seems to generate a large game of liar's poker that is not healthy for anybody - least of all the poor bloody punter who ends up paying the price (literally) for all these shenanigans.
........your brand name or something associated with that product may be taken *into* the language. The classic example is of course to "hoover" and in modern times, to "google". However what Apple are trying to do is to take something *from* the language - the courts should give them a very dusty reply.
"if you post zero Apple stories for a full, and I mean full, month you maychance get your invites back."
Nothing short of several years of brown-nosing of the sort you can see virtually daily at, for example, the Graun's tech site would have any effect. El Reg is on Cupertino's shit list - you can judge a web-site by their enemies. In common with very many examples of BigCorp Apple is totally anal about being in any way, large or small, dissed.
An addendum to my previous post. It appears that all *new* phones released 'with* mango will be capable of tethering if (in common with iPhones and Android mobs) the carrier permits it. It is only currently existing WP7s that (at the present) that will not be able to use that facility.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/27/windows-phone-7-5-mango-review/
"There are, however, plenty of other features that can be used only if the network operators let you. The most desirable, enabling the phone as a Wi-Fi hotspot for up to five users, is likely to come at a hefty fee from many providers."
I seem to recall that relatively recently the US carriers started to threaten customers who did this with various penalties if they did not buy a plan that included a fee for this facility. Currently I believe that Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile all charge for tethering in one way or the other and customers risk punishment if they tether without permission.
From Sprints terms and conditions:
"Except with Phone-as-Modem plans, you may not use a phone (including a Bluetooth phone) as a modem in connection with a computer, PDA, or similar device. We reserve the right to deny or terminate service without notice for any misuse or any use that adversely affects network performance."
This has nothing to do with whether you run iOS, Android or WP7, the carriers are just being their usual selves - nothing to do with Redmond, Cupertino or Mountain View on this occasion.
The Galaxy S II 16 Gb (depending on where you buy it) is about £50 or 10% cheap*er* than the 16 Gb iPhone4 - that makes it *competitively* priced, not cheap. I have also had hands-on time with one very recently and I can only describe your use of the word "crap" as fanboi trolling.
According to Apple themselves they had sold a total of all iPhones of 108 million as of March 2011.
http://ipod.about.com/od/glossary/f/how-many-iphones-sold.htm
However, if this *is* correct and the figures for the Galaxy S II are *also* correct we can readily see why Cupertino have been experiencing a brown-trouser moment because it implies that Samsung have managed within a few months to generate sales equivalent to 9.25% of *all* the iPhones ever sold as of March this year with only *one* model. As I said earlier on this thread I do not believe we need to search further for the explanation for Cupertino's "legal" war.
.............as to why Apple started their current legal war against Samsung. This is the first time that another phone is perceived by Cupertino as a serious threat to the successful launch of a new iPhone. The original Galaxy S was a warning shot and Apple realised that its follow-up would likely give them a real challenge.
.........but what about stripping them of their registration if the site is clearly inactive for a given period of time? In other words, "use it or loose it". In the Old West when you staked a claim I seem to remember that you lost it if you failed to work it - could apply the same principle here.
I have to say that it sounds like teenage kids to me rather than "adults". The mentality behind that kind of spoof, the importance of the game to them - and the cheating followed by getting indignant at those who have caught you at it. This probably precludes your excellent suggestion at the end of your piece. Where they *are* adults I wish that I really was in a position to suggest the scorpion pits!