Sign in / up

* Posts by BingBong

83 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Jun 2010

Page:

KeyCase iPad Folio Deluxe

BingBong
Reply Icon

Yeah right ... not

@The future iPad will not be backwards compatible with the old iPad so this folio/kbd unit will not work with it anyway.

Its a bluetooth keyboard and unless they change the bluetooth stack for some future non-backwards compatible protocol standard (which is highly unlikely) then it will work for years to come ... this has been the case with Macs ever since they included bluetooth keyboards as an option in 2003.

Plus if you have any real inside information on future iPad's then you could make a lot of money out of that ... but I'm guessing that you're guessing and badly at that.

0 0
BingBong
Reply Icon

Apple guarantee their batteries ...

To quote Apple ...

"A properly maintained iPad battery is designed to retain up to 80% of its original capacity at 1000 full charge and discharge cycles. You may choose to replace your battery when it no longer holds sufficient charge to meet your needs."

"Your one-year warranty includes replacement coverage for a defective battery. [snip] During the plan’s coverage period, Apple will replace the battery if it drops below 50% of its original capacity. If it is out of warranty, Apple offers a battery replacement for $99, plus $6.95 shipping, subject to local tax."

After years of use of battery operated products I have found Apple's quoted times and battery quality to be extremely good .. better than most other vendors.

0 0
BingBong

Too expensive for the limitations

I bought a £3 iPad case (with built in stand) and £17 bluetoothcompact keyboard both on eBay (UK vendor) ... both are extremely well made and the keyboard runs on 2 AA batteries. The mini-keyboard includes a lovely mini-mouse joystick and is a chocbloc style complete with working multi-media keys and of course it easily pairs with my mac mini linked to the HDTV.

I loved the Z88 .. wrote my PhD using one (in LaTeX) ... 8 lines of 80 characters .. excellent and the dead flesh keyboard was great but attracted the dust but was wipe clean! I even wrote a file upload/downloader to transfer data to/from a Sun 3 workstation ... ahh those were the days 8-)

1 0

iPhone app tagged as terror tool

BingBong
Reply Icon

Don't forget the road signs ...

You can't miss them and they point you directly at where the flying person tubes cluster.

They got rid of the road signs during WWII and we won that so it must be a good idea.

What a Total Door Knob.

---

Seriously, this is EXACTLY what the terrorists want to hear .. we should just ignore this Manic Pillock and keep calm and carry on as normal. I heard an excellent interview on the Today programme the other evening with an American guy who was commenting on the recent "Travel Warnings" for Europe (he was a tourism exec for NYC after 9/11) and basically he said not to worry about terrorism too much because it is so unlikely that you will get blown up and much more likely you will get killed in a car accident ... I was pleasantly pleased to hear an American talk sense for once 8-)

0 0

iPad spends 20% of time in bed

BingBong
Reply Icon

My wife watches ....

Road Wars in bed on ours!

I'm way over the 35 year mark and find that I take my 3G iPad almost everywhere I go as the size, weight, battery life, speed, instant on and user interface makes it an almost perfect ubiquitous computing device.

By the time RIM ship their playbook, Apple will have iPad 2.0 almost out and that will be slimmer, faster (dual core), slightly cheaper (even with 20% VAT), at least one camera and probably also have the iPhone 4 gyroscope in it.

---

Posted from my iPad ... on the sofa at the mother-in-laws

0 0

Half-a-billion users don't mean API payola

BingBong
Reply Icon

.. tell Apple that then

I suspect the reason Apple and Facebook still have not come to a deal after 18 months of negotiation (over the Farcebook API usage by Apple's Ping service) is that they are arguing over cost of access to these APIs and Apple is notoriously bullish about profit sharing and Facebook is asking for too much.

0 0

Apple COO Cook to take the HP helm?

BingBong
Reply Icon

@Makes sense when one considers Mr. Jobs' health difficulties.

Umm, actually it makes the complete opposite sense ... Cook could easily replace Jobs as he did during Jobs medical leave last year .. why give up that to run the rather boring HP monolith?

0 0

RIM unveils The BlackPad BlackBerry PlayBook

BingBong
Reply Icon

QNX single floppy was cool ...

But lets see how well Flash runs with sites like snapfish.com ... it's a soggy nightmare on a 2Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo.

1 1

Apple iPod Touch 4G

BingBong
Reply Icon

Trustworthy

Apple actual has a pretty good record on battery life estimations .. just look at other Apple product reviews that show real world testing.

1 0

Amazon loves LoveFilm (true)

BingBong

Maybe not a good time to jump ..

With Netflix long rumoured to be about to start-up in the UK sometime this year and with the Apple TV 2.0 just launched including the UK with a strong Netflix tie-up in the USA then I would think Netflix will come along to the UK and become a dominant online Movie Rental resource so it might be very risky for Amazon to buy LoveFilm.

I gave up on LoveFilm many years ago after using them for at least a year .. I ran out of reasonable movies to watch and getting hold of new movies on my wish list took months. Online streaming of new movies in HD would certainly be better value for me and no little kids kicking the back of the seat in my home cinema and the popcorn is free.

0 0

Netizens now Facebook more than they Google

BingBong
Reply Icon
Troll

500,000,000 can't be wrong...

No, wait, they can.

Go on poke me, I dare you.

0 0

Critical Flash vuln under active attack, Adobe warns

BingBong

I see no Flash

What's this Flash stuff anyhoose?

---

Sent from my iPad

0 3

iPhone finds its Google Voice

BingBong
FAIL

"network operators who worked so hard to make the iPhone affordable"

Yeah right, by gouging people with long-term-lock-in contracts which make the iPhone really expensive compared to an unlocked iPhone + off the peg SIM. That is really working hard, not.

I have never bought the argument that operators are ever doing things in the best interest of their customers .. save, maybe, Three in the UK, who offer good SIM only deals.

0 0

First Dreamliner delivery slips into 2011

BingBong

This could be the reason.....

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2010/08/24/346509/faa-confirms-trent-1000-failure-was-uncontained.html

There will be a bit of cleaning up to do I guess!

0 0

New code-execution bug found in Windows and 40 apps

BingBong
Reply Icon

Linux is almost perfect

Nah .. nearly but please do "Just go update" and purge that 5 year old kernel hole.

You probably meant to say "OpenBSD" 8-)

0 0

Apple iMac 21.5in 2010

BingBong
Reply Icon
Thumb Up

who uses 8cm CDs?

Windows drivers for odd hardware that's who and they will be out of date so you might as well download them from tinternet anyway.

It's a very nice piece of kit though (wifey also likes it) and I like the slot loaders which have been on macs for around ten years; it's great fun to eject disks and see how far they bounce .... My G5 iMac is long in the tooth but unfortunately it still just works and I can't part with it (even though you get good returns on eBay for macs compared to peecees) ... I suppose it could replace the G4 Cube in wifey's study but that still works fine even when running Windows 98 in Virtual PC for the only Windows app wifey uses. So I'm running out of "I need a new iMac because..." excuses.

0 0

3D films fall flat

BingBong

I saw Toy Story 3 last week ..

.. and watched it in 2D as I did not want to pay 50% extra for 3D and extra again for the glasses that would have to sit over my normal glasses.

But jolly good it was in 2D anyway.

0 0

iPad pitches Apple onto world PC top table

BingBong

Of course the iPad is a personal computer ...

In fact it is more personal than most due to its tactile, light and engaging form factor. However it is obviously not in the same league as dual or quad core 15+ inch laptops and my arms are quite thankful at that !!

It does however beat a netbook (or laptop) on many of the mobile functions that "normal human beings" would use a netbook for .. i.e. email, farcebook, twonter, gootube, non-flash (but quite flashy) games, skype (will be excellent under iOS 4 when that comes out as it now works correctly as a background app).

I would say that for most of the general public that currently buy computers, unless they need full video/photoshop editing of their digital camera output, then 95% of what they would do could be dealt with by an iPad ... currently the ONLY downside is that to perform iOS upgrades or upload your own ripped CDs you need a computer to connect to! When the new Apple data centre comes online then I can see an "iTunes in the cloud" overcoming those issues.

Of course 95% of Reg readers don't need an iPad and aren't the target audience .. so the fact you can also do all this with X, Y or Z .. is moot.

5 0

Phonemakers cry foul on Steve Jobs 'We're all alike' attack

BingBong

@Which, of course, despite Jobs' "We love our users" assurances, is the bottom line.

Jobs does not care about shareholders much and Apple don't make products to please shareholders either .. they want to make products that people love and if they make money, great.

As far as the iPhone 4 is concerned, the only problem it really has is that they have made the shape too minimal (and its a shame as I normally love their minimalist designs) and removed the curvy back which makes it less attractive to women (so my wife thinks and a number of girls in the Apple store the other day when I went for a look 8-) and gives a sharper feel in the hand.

I think they need to go back to a more rounded design which they could do by incorporating a plastic band all around it .. oh wait they are doing that by giving the bumpers away!

2 7

iPhone customers lay into Apple after iOS 4.0.1 update fails to install

BingBong
Reply Icon

Search this then ..

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

0 0

Acer Aspire 1825PT 11.6in touchscreen notebook

BingBong
FAIL

Touchscreen Ubuntu?

Windows 7 meh, not bothered about Windows even if it is the most reasonable version since NT 3.51. What about sticking Ubuntu on it, what's the touchscreen support like for that? (even with the netbook remix big icons which works a treat on a 7" 1st gen Asus eee netbook).

From a touchscreen point of view if its too heavy to hold and wobbles about if you have it on a desk then really what use is the touchscreen apart from being a bit gimmicky? The iPad is light, fast, long battery life and well suited to mobile applications (e.g. form filling, presentations, email, browsing, watching tv on the loo) and for the same price you get the top end device .. so I'm not sure if its worth the extra few hundred on top of a normal notebook price for the touchscreen element of the Acer even though I'm sure the hardware build is good .. its stuck in the same mould as the other Bill Gates Tablets of old albeit with a better hardware spec ... its just not as touchy or mobily as an iPad, hmm.

The only time I use a CD/DVD drive these days is for ripping media or a new OS install, everything else comes over the network (Wifi,3G or wired) and if you don't trust an outsourced cloud then just connect a NAS or file server (I've a NFS'ed ZFS server with 9Tb of RAIDZed usable space) and run it yourself. USB DVD drives are really cheap if you don't go for the ultra slimline versions and you only need one 8-)

2 0

Buffalo MicroStation SSD

BingBong

20 quid if you want somewhere useful to stick the old drive.

Which gold plated 2.5" sata drive enclosures do you buy? I would never spend more than £7 for one from say ebuyer.com and usually buy direct from china via eBay for < £2.50 inc delivery!

0 0

Apple iPad 3G 32GB

BingBong
Reply Icon

Both already available ..

£2.50 (yes that's 2 pounds and 50 pence) for a car charger on eBay (5v @ 2.1amp output - works brill)

Plus car mounts for ipad are ten a penny .. well okay going from £5 to £30 8-)

Anyway, the iPad is terrific and I use 3G from Three with SIM only "unlimited" Internet (i.e. 2Gig) data for £5 (yes just five pounds a month) and so far not run out.

0 0

More iPhone 4 angst: fanbois howl over head sensor

BingBong

iPhone 3GS users need not bother to upgrade the hardware ...

But the free iOS 4 software upgrade is really rather good and I'm looking forward to the upgrade for the iPad as I'm already missing the differences when moving between the iPad and 3GS.

Exposed antennas was always going to be a gamble and I would have thought an inclusion of a black bumper with each phone would have been a good move rather than charging a fortune for a set of coloured silicon elastic bands!

4 2

Plastic Logic still ain't got a Que

BingBong

Needs colour to escape a niche market

Rightly or wrongly people want colour and multimedia on these portable tablet devices. Sure they will be a niche market for avid readers who like to read outside but that will not include many business users .. they will read inside and want full multimedia and colour output .. for them the iPad or one of the mythical Android tablets will be most suitable.

[posted inside from an iPad 8-]

0 0

Apple: we've sold a lot of iPhone 4s

BingBong
Reply Icon
Thumb Up

Too true

The interesting thing is that Apple don't actually hype their products themselves that much; apart from the usual product launch event and some pre-launch product reviews by friendly reviewers (timed to come out just after the launch event) and TV advertising, I cannot see what Apple do differently from most other big companies. Yet Apple get slammed for the use of hyperbolic type language ("revolutionary", "magical", etc) but what else do you expect from a marketing department??!

The hype seems to come from the media and "fans" (both for and against Apple).

I think Android will eventually dominate the smartphone market in pure numbers terms simply by the fact of the number of non-Apple handset manufacturers lining up to jump on that particular bandwagon and the competition in pricing; unlike the music player market where there was no obvious common "standard" alternative. Apple will remain a high-end niche market (no probs with that as long as they continue to evolve their product set) and I think RIM will shrink as businesses realize that there are cheaper alternatives to running your own "vendor lock-in" Blackberry Enterprise Servers and paying premiums for BB handsets.

1 0

3 offers best iPhone deal

BingBong
Reply Icon
Thumb Up

+1 for Three, their network and customer service and prices

I make £10 of PAYG call time last a year ... so I'd go for a £499 iPhone 4 from Apple, combined with a £5/month "SIM Only Internet" 1 month contract which gives "Unlimited Internet" (that is actually 2Gb per month fair usage). Which means I can spend £40 a year on calls and texts (which I will never do 8-) to match Three's iPhone 4 minimum contract price.

1 0

iPad gouges netbook sales

BingBong

Nah, not a fail

You don't need "Apple channels" to consume media on an iPad. You can stream music from last.fm (for free), you can stream video from a home server using AirVideo which also gives a one-click conversion that will add the MP4 file to iTunes to synchronise with the onboard disk. With lots more to come.

There are more apps than I can count that allow files to be directly loaded on to the iPad and used by different applications etc.

Lack of Flash .. that's not a real criticism! Sure it might upset some people who want to play farmville on Farcebook .. no wait there's an App for that coming real soon including "your crops are withering" push notifications. It does mean I can't watch BBC News 24 in a little window on the BBC website ... Oh wait, no I can stream it (even over 3G) from ipad.tvcatchup.com in excellent h.264. Finally I really miss the flash ads like I miss trepanning!

The iPad is a fail just like ipod and iPhone have been a dreadful fail 8-)

3 2

iPad beats BlackBerry for browsing

BingBong

Blackberry browsing sucks

I never use a web browser (opera or BB) on my employers BlackBerry as it sucks big style .. It's an awful experience ... The iPhone is an order of magnitude better and the iPad is better again. However you cannot really compare web browsing or any other function running on an iPad to a BlackBerry .. The huge difference in screen and keyboard size makes a huge difference in a web browsing experience, so you are not measuring like for like anyway. The difference between iPhone web usage and any other "smartphone" is what should be compared.

If my employer used Exchange or ran the latest version of the Notes webmail front end, I would hand the BB back and use my personal iPhone for works email !

Email on the iPad is even better and with iOS4 coming autumn time to the iPad then I will have a unified mailbox.

1 0
BingBong
Reply Icon
Troll

Yeah right

And the iPod will never catch on and the iPhone will not sell as it's just another smartphone and the app store is just a flash in the pan.

Just crawl back under your stone troll B-)

2 2

Superslim iPhone 4 enough to fend off Android?

BingBong
Reply Icon

fail on you

The wifi issues were A LACK OF BANDWIDTH in the room nothing else [due to the sheer number of "mifi" access points in use] which meant the web page loading was slow.

0 0

Sneaky bin chipping still in the bag for UK.gov

BingBong
Reply Icon

more rubbish

Point = missing. Just see how quickly people put numbers and padlocks on their bins.

0 0
BingBong

What a load of rubbish! Opt in is easy ...

Councils could send out sticky RFID chips which an individual household could decide to stick on their bins or not, thereby opting in as they wish. I believe some of the bins have a hole in which an encased chip can be easily placed in anyway.

It is rubbish (pun intended) to say that *everyone* must have their bins chipped in order to be able to reward people ... only those who physically opt-in need them ... just like loyalty cards (which are all opt-in), you get something if you do something and get nothing if you can't be bothered. It is self-policing as well because people will want to check online that their bins are being properly recorded so they get rewarded ... again no need to chip every bin, only those that are interested in getting something for recycling will need the chipping.

0 0

Page: