Posts by CharlieG 3 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Apr 2010
What could possibly go wrong with prioritising shareholder returns over investment in R&D and product development? That $25,000,000,000+ they had lying around to spend on stock buybacks in the last two years alone definitely couldn't have been used any better ($4B in Q1 2020, $13B in 2019, $10B in 2018).
"I must be lucky to have service since I joined giffgaff in November!
No problems here, I get 3G where I need it, and I don't have to worry about data limits. I don't tether and neither do I continuously download stuff for the sake of it. I used just over 3Gb last month without issues."
This is pretty much my experience. Joined in November, transferred my old number no problem, been very happy so far.
Everyone knows by now that "unlimited" data at this price is a lie, and the service shouldn't be allowed to be describe itself as such. They should be forced to state the cap by law. But I have very little sympathy for people getting kicked off for abuse, they know the score.
While I actually agree with Steve Jobs that Flash is a pile of crap, and the sooner it dies and is replaced by HTML5 the better, this kind of wide ranging draconian diktat is just making his company look worse and worse every day. Microsoft seem downright friendly these days in comparison.
Jobs is setting up Apple for a big fall somewhere along the line. The competition is catching up, or has done already, on the technical front, and in the end just being shiny and Apple-branded won't be enough when there are better and more open alternatives out there. Apple are now reacting instead of innovating, the multi-tasking change in OS 4.0 was forced on them because people now look at Android phones and ask why can't the iPhone do this. Which of course it could have long ago, but Jobs didn't want it to, so that was that.
It's a shame that Jobs' personality is the way it is. No-one can deny that when Apple are at the top of their game they can make some fantastic gear that people really want to use. If only he wasn't quite such a control freak.
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