Posts by Dave 126

Re: "I blame The Matrix for starting all this off, by the way."

Many OSX applications - such as Adobe Lightroom and video editing and colour grading applications - have used a 'goth mode' for years. If you're working on a dark image or video, bright UI elements are distracting or glaring, especially on HDR displays.

One assumes this OS-wide goth mode is just make things less jarring when these users switch to another task.

Re: Forgotten fractions

If you're just making one individual phone, the OS would be more than 99.99% the cost. If you make billions of phones, the cost of developing the OS is far less than 0.1%. that is of course assuming that the OS doesn't generate revenue (advertising) independent if the sticker price)

Re: Define "win"

> Ten years later and the update problem is still not solved. Yay, Android.

Really? Have you a crystal ball? It's impossible to tell which of today's handsets will still be receiving updates in a few years time, but the signs are promising. Sony used to be criticised, but my Xperia P was updated across three versions of Android. OnePlus used to be criticised, but due to market pressure they now roll out version updates far faster than they did. My Samsung S8 has been receiving monthly security updates, and it doesn't even have Project Treble. Since phones have matured and there is less to choose between them, there's now more incentive for vendors to release updates, and it's now easier for them than ever before to do so.

(I've only ever used Android, there are things I like about it, and things iOS seems to do better. I'm not cheerleading, just pointing out the consequences of a maturing market)

Re: Scanning?

Paper voting can work just fine, but it's often poorly implemented in the US. A history is here:

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/butterfly-effects/

Re: The Solid South

Flaws by lack of design. Every US state designs its own paper voting system, but they don't employ designers. So there's been the case of the "hanging chads' in Florida, and another state that mandated 8 pt text on the ballot forms.

If they can't bring the first bit of common design sense to paper ballots, what hope their electronic voting systems?

Re: Yay!

It's the first Reg article to report the new SIM / eSIM configurations correctly, though.

Re: Exchange rate

The US uses different frequencies, no?

Re: Margins

Eh? Many Android vendors would dream of a $100 dollar margin on each unit sold. If they added $500 to the price they'd sell next to nothing.

Re: Apple ecosystem

Peripherals, services, and 3rd party software. The high street is awash with 'made for iPhone' headphones from Sennheiser etc al. There are also more niche hardware such as external microphones, Leica survey equipment, 3D scanners and cameras that work over Lightning.

Games and software tend to come to iOS first, because the platform is less fragmented, iOS users have more money and so spend more on apps, and Android software is easy to pirate.

Re: SE gone - so am I :-(

The SE wasn't announced alongside other iPhones in Autumn, but in an early Spring event - so there's hope yet for an SE 2. Will there be an SE 2? Hard to tell, gotta balance Apple's desire to sell phones to kids and those people who love the form factor, and their desire to have all apps developed for a narrower range of screen sizes.

A grand isn't Apple's minimum - the 7 and 8 models haven't been discontinued, and start at £450 - admittedly a big chunk more than the SE's £250.

Yep, came here to note that.

Re: Windows?

Well, these cavemen had Linux admin-style beards, so it's plausible.

Re: Clearly, it is ...

Yeah, there were cats, but of the huge brute variety with bastard big sabre teeth. Opposite of cute.

Re: World's fastest old phone in the palm of your hand

Eh? Music files haven't drastically increased in size, so what would you use all that storage for? Even movies are only a few GB a piece, how many do you need to watch on your commute between your home WiFi and the hotel? People use Netflicks these days. iPhone RAM quantity hasn't been a bar to games on the platform, nor to AR, an area Apple are active in. It might help that iPhone NAND storage is very fast indeed (see Anandtech) and developers know it, so shunting between NAND and RAM can be done nearly seamlessly for many tasks.

All the above is true of Android flagships. Most Samsung flagships only offer 4GB of RAM, OnePlus's 6GB RAM option largely considered a gimmick for now. Flagship phones have NAND so fast that high frame HDR video can be filmed without buffering.

According to one games website, it's hard to distinguish between popular game Fortnite on an iPhone X and a Galaxy S9. Fortnite developers have noted that porting the game to Android was a pain the arse though, due to variety of devices and OS version.

Re: Razr

That's the trouble - people now use phones for web browsers and video, whereas the original iPhone size - up to 5 and SE - was based around apps which for tasks like checking weather and train times had a much simpler (therefore better for small screens) interface.

Re: Bend over FanBoiz,...

If you haven't noticed that there's huge number of people in the world whose wallets are more than big enough to shrug off an iPhone (or Range Rover, or ounce of cocaine, or shit, just being able to go the pub five nights a week) many times over then you've clearly not been paying attention to what's around you.

Re: Ford Called

The iPhone RS keeps crashing, but it was genuinely the user's fault.

My mate once asked a Bristol copper why they weren't driving Focus RS cars anymore: "Yeah, we did have those, but the lads kept crashing them"

Re: Razr

The Razr was a phone Steve Jobs approved of. The Motorola Rokr - the one that had iTunes on it - he clearly didn't like. When he presented it on stage he held like it was a bag of dog poo.

Sidenote: if you think these iPhones are expensive, check out how much Samsung want for a modern Android clamshell phone (China only): £3,000

https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/12/1/16724656/samsung-w2018-flip-phone-android-china

Re: Yawn....

> Increasingly hard on the pocket in more than one sense...

Sad to see Apple discontinuing the iPhone SE. Here's hoping that a successor is announced in a Winter / Spring event, as the original SE was.

People are enthusiastic about BXactions - an app that lets you remap that Bixby hardware button. I haven't got it working though for some reason (it requires plugging into a computer to unlock its features, and this stage fails for me. Possibly an antivirus clash. I'm finding I can't be arsed fault finding computers these days).

I'm surprised other phone vendors aren't providing a spare hardware button or two and letting users map them to common features such as Flashlight or Pause Audio.

Re: 6.5-inch OLED Screen

Feature complete Photoshop is coming to iOS next year - on iPads. The issue with a desktop on a small screen is obvious. The DEX system is handy for niche use cases, but only where you know you'll have a monitor, keyboard and cables ready.

Since Apple haven't even brought the Apple Pencil to iPhones, their policy of distinguishing phones from tablets (which are becoming laptop like) remains clear. They'd like you to buy both.

- sent from from DEX compatible Samsung.

Wait and see how the under the screen fingerprint readers mature. The OnePlus 6T will have one. There's optical ways of doing it, and ultrasonic ways - the latter Apple has some interest in. Though of course they have patents, exclusivity deals and interests in many things they don't end up using in products.

But checking a text whilst driving? Maybe investigate a text to speech accessibility function.

Re: Emergency call

Yes, it can be turned off.

Dropping your watch won't call the emergency services, since the watch knows it's not attached to you.

Re: Yawn....

Yep, it's boring, but that's not a bad thing. It's the difficulty in bringing anything radically new to a pocket device (size and power constraints) that forces designers to look at the small details. Polishing away lots of little niggles can lead to a markedly better user experience over time. Or in Apple's case, include long missing g features such as waterproofing, wireless charging and multiple SIM support (this isn't a jibe, Apple have done done things first too, and often find them very well. I don't see value in being first for the sake of being first, but some features were long overdue).

Look at Samsung - very little difference between the S8 and S9 other than the finger print sensor has been made slightly less awkward. Otherwise it's just a slightly better screen, slightly faster processor, slightly this, slightly that. And that's okay.

If you want a crazy radical phone, wait til next year when Samsung and some if their Chinese partners roll out some phones with flexible displays. But the first generation with likely be clunky, poorly supported in software and not proven to be durable. I'll take boring.

Re: Err, Dave126...

Oops! Oh well, at least even my van can keep up with a push chair. Unless it's a particularly steep hill.

Re: Problem-solution dichotomy

Number of times a car has been stolen * huge inconvenience of such. Versus:

Number of times a stressed parent holding has used keyless fob to lock vehicle after their brood has exited the vehicle * convenience of such.

Weighing of pros and cons requires numbers.