"I doubt you have seen a Galaxy phone"

*takes his out of his pocket*

*looks at it*

Nope, sorry, I can tell that it's not an iPhone. The big logo at the top, the rectangular home button, the illuminated menu and back buttons and the fact that I'm not a twat are the significant clues.

So what you're saying is..

... that if you remove all the incredibly obvious differences between the Galaxy S2 and the iPhone, the S2 would look JUST LIKE AN iPHONE!!!!??? My God! How did I not see it before?

Apple aren't going to do that

Because they know that they can't win. This isn't a swipe at the quality of iProducts; it's inevitable that the major companies who are in competition both with each other and with Apple are going to put more effort into innovating than Apple can, if only because five heads are better than one.

Apple have thus far been able to maintain their strong grasp on the smartphone market because of their monolithic approach - don't have a range of products that do different things, have one that does everything - but now HTC, Samsung et al have caught up, Apple can no longer call the tune. The only way they can maintain their market share now is to prevent other companies entering the market.

As for the Samsung lawsuit, I believe it's a bluff. They don't expect the judgement to be passed, but when it isn't, they can use that as another lever to have the rulings against the Galaxy range struck down.

Poker isn't gambling

Not if done right, anyway. It certainly has no house odds.

Anyone know if the Christopher Ferguson mentioned in the article is Chris "Jesus" Ferguson? I really hope not - bad enough to see a name as big as Howard Lederer involved, but a past WSOP Main Event champion as well would be a major black mark on the game's reputation.

Well...

... they *did* say "so long as it has any form of telecommunications capability". That would give the iPhone 4 a pass.

No, only one grocer was using them

And if more than one grocer is using them, it's "grocer's apo'strophe's".

Yes, that is how you use the past tense

However, as the use of self-operated checkouts at Safeway and other supermarkets is contemporary, the present tense is correct.

Your user name is most apt - you are indeed *our* retarded. Though to be a bit of a grammar pedant, in English you would actually say "your retard" or "your retarded person". Hope that helps.

"CD's have a built in 10 year limit"

Stop talking rubbish. I have CDs on my rack that I've owned for twice that long, and they still work fine. I bought my first DVD in 1999; that disc still works, and the only disc I've ever had stop working did so because of physical damage.

Moral: never believe anything you hear from someone who uses grocer's apostrophes.

Blaster bolts don't move at light speed

If they did, they'd be visible as a beam rather than a bolt.

I believe there's some handwaving explanation about them actually being vaguely plasma based, or something similar.

I don't think about who to trust with my piss...

But I've thought about what I'm willing to trust PayPal with.

The IT angle? The forward slash, obviously.

Unless, of course...

... the two suns aren't precisely the same size and the same distance from the planet.

Losing your son to ego is unfortunate, but getting dropped in it yourself due to having not even a basic understanding of perspective is just downright embarrassing. And slapping a boffin icon on it makes it worse.

No, they aren't a bank anywhere

But they act like they are.

I wouldn't trust PayPal with a drop of piss, let alone money.

Only 20,000 Tabs sold

Mainly because Apple had it made illegal to sell the other 480,000. Nice of you to admit that Apple are trying to sue anyone who releases a genuine competitor product out of business, though.

You clearly haven't seen Vader's "No"

If you had, you would realise that it wrecks the scene. As originally presented, Vader's emotional dilemma is made obvious through Dave Prowse's body language. Vocalising it strips away any requirement for subtlety of characterisation. Nothing plotwise has changed, but in terms of quality of presentation it's the sonic equivalent of taking a flying scene from Superman and putting the wires back in.

(BTW, you don't have to be an "obsessed fanboi" to believe that Han originally shot first, because it's blatantly fucking obvious that he did.)

Why government departments have Facebook pages

Apparently, it's because 7,856 people like them.

All threads on El Reg have erectile dysfunction

Or at least, none of them have been made sticky.

Nobody has the "right" to be free from mockery

Especially anonymous cowards who evidently can't count to three.

Fanboi logic. It does not resemble our Earth logic.

So, if I can afford an iPhone but am clever enough to buy Android, that means I have *less* money to spend? Really? Surely if I can afford an iPhone but buy something cheaper instead, then I have more money to spend. Even if I'm shopping within my budget, I'm still just as liquid as the iPhone user who can just about afford one - if not more so, as many Android apps are cheaper. Your entire assertion is thus based on the presumption that iPhone owners earn considerably more than Android owners. I can disabuse you of this notion by spending an hour on a city bus route.

Also, I can buy apps from the market with a single click, using an account that works in just the same way as an iTunes account. (And Apple move the litigation drive to sue factor 7.)

Q Acoustics 2000

I use a Q Acoustics 1000 set with my Onkyo 608, which were What Hi-Fi's best budget buy pretty much until the 2000 series replaced them.

The 2000 series can be bought as a 5.1 pack for around £500 - sub, centre speaker and four satellites. The satellites are small enough to use as rear surround if you fancy 7.1, so you can buy either an extra pair of satellites for around £110 or a pair of the floorstanding speakers (2020 or 2030, I forget which) for ~£160.

What mistake?

iproducts are just computers and apps are just code. It's wholly obvious that iOS should be able to run such apps. You should have realised that when you said "I've jailbroken my iPad so I can do it", you also said that if you hadn't jailbroken it, then you couldn't. That is why Apple are behind in the game; because they DON'T let you run these apps, not because their products CAN'T run them.

Don't be an idiot

The iPad 3 is a forthcoming product which is expected to have new features. Do you perhaps expect a dedicated technology news site to not post news about such things?

Apples and Oranges

Non-Apple phone buyers switch brands because the best phone on the market with the features they want is not always made by the same company. Nokia and Samsung and HTC and Motorola and Sony Ericsson are in competition; that pushes each of them forward in an attempt to be better than their rivals - or at least provide a unique selling point that people will want - and hence win the sales.

Apple phone buyers do exactly the same thing, except instead of buying the best phone on the market they buy the best iPhone on the market.

You forgot some of the content

... "and that fanbois are still queuing up to buy them even though they do not know how much the iPhone 5 will cost or if it will have specs any better than the iPhone 4 they already undoubtedly have".

What natural assumption?

Nobody is assuming that students are somehow intelligent enough to detect phishes at will. What is the point is that if you don't have a sufficient grasp of English to know the proper usage of "is" and "are", then you should not be going to university in the UK.

(NB: this doesn't automatically exclude foreign students, as many of them speak English better than our own students do these days. Which is not surprising, as under their inferior education systems they actually have to learn subjects to an acceptable standard to get a passing grade.)

Silly Drew...

... why didn't you just blame the Turkish hackers for the missing links?

Such a gadget already exists

It's called a "brain" and reputedly, it comes as standard on humans.

If your wife hadn't come downstairs then someone would still have written your post - as your well-deserved nomination for a Darwin Award. Did you not listen when the endocrinologist told you to drink alcohol only occasionally and always in moderation? NOTHING screws up your blood sugar levels like alcohol, while at the same time it impairs your ability to notice the symptoms.

No doubt there's a joke I'm missing here

I mean, it couldn't be that you're laughing at a collection of syllables which carry no humour in spelling or pronunciation merely because they're in another language.

Yes...

... because then they'll be able to arrest you and seize your PC when your dynamic IP is reassigned to someone else.

iOS vs Android

Android and iOS may have been in development at the same time, but that just makes it a case of parallel evolution - separate developers coming to the same, obvious solution. Apple would have to prove espionage on Samsung's part to win this case.

Meanwhile, back in the courtroom: why are Apple not suing everyone else using this variant of Android? I can tell you: as I said in the iPad vs Galaxy Tab thread, it's because Apple don't care about competitors who are regarded as inferior. However, when someone releases a product of equal or greater quality at equal or lesser cost, Apple immediately reach for the legal team because they do not innovate and hence cannot keep up. Their ongoing legal battle with Samsung is nothing more or less than an attempt to eliminate from the market any product that is considered better than their own - namely, the Galaxy Tab and the Galaxy S2.

No...

That's because Apple are the only one claiming that the design belongs to them.

And Samsung phones have it built in

You can set up a free Dive account that in the event of phone loss, allows you to remotely lock or wipe your phone and get its current location using GPS.

I always preferred PICNIC

"Problem In Chair, Not In Computer". s/"Chair"/"Coffin", and the job's a good 'un.

Actually, rounded corners I'll give them

Apple may not have invented rounded corners on tablets, but when it comes to suing for the copying of design rulings are based solely on multiple points of similarity.

For example, none of the features of the Ford Ka are original to that vehicle; however, if Nissan made a car to an apparently identical design then Ford would be within their rights to sue. Nissan would have to show that their car was significantly different in some way in order to continue selling it.

Where it all falls down for Apple is that the Galaxy Tab does have enough significant differences that it cannot be easily confused with the heilPad. Once that has been established, then Apple could only successfully sue if Samsung had stolen a design feature that was unique to Apple products. Or if they bought the judge, of course.

Why would they need to charge fees per transaction?

As you would know if you had read the article, Vodafone will add the app purchases to your monthly bill. Vodafone themselves will have a similar arrangement with Google.

Let's add a bit more common sense

Diabetics who don't get enough insulin will eventually enter a coma. It is thus VITAL that the dosages from an insulin pump must be readable and for preference adjustable by a person other than the user.

Nothing evil about protecting your designs

But quite a lot evil about falsifying evidence to make it look like a competitor's product does precisely ape your design, when in fact it doesn't. It has been proven beyond doubt that Apple did this in their evidence for the German ruling on the Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Here's the simple equation: Apple didn't say a thing about other tablets that look a lot more like the iPad, because they were poorly supported and of not particularly high quality. As soon as there existed a well-supported tablet that matched or surpassed the iPad for spec, Apple cried "patent violation!" and tried to have sale of the offending item banned.