Posts by N13L5

An awesome strategic Play!

It'll cause horrific headlines if Apple blocks Google's map app.

Also, it'll cause most Apple users who aren't die-hard fanbois to start wondering if a corporate controlled App store is really such a good idea to be subjected to.

I think making the iOS app for iPhones is a great strategic move on Google's part:

If Apple accepts it, people will install it and use it, and Google has what it wants.

If Apple rejects it, it will make them look really bad and cause a possible land slide of defections.

This is going to be hilarious to watch... I wish I could listen in on some of the meetings at Apple pertaining to this conundrum! This has the potential to blow the censorship issue wide open!

Sadly, its unlikely Apple is going to let it come to that. They'll quietly accept maps into the App store and sadly, there will be no revolution.

Re: Android "free"? - - - Not free, but a fair trade.

Of course None of Google's stuff is 'free' since Google is a corporation in the business of making money.

Google just gets its money in other places rather than from Consumers like you and me.

You are aware, how all corporations are collecting as much data about everybody as they possibly can, to mine that data, sell that data etc?

Well, Google is the company, who directly offers you something in exchange for your data. They actually recognize that the consumer should receive something for their data being used to make money on. Since Google's software works well for me, I call it a good trade.

Neither Apple nor Microsoft think so, they just want to stuff us up with toll booths at every possible corner, and get our data for free in the process.

Re: If only

I don't like the new choices of Apple's walled Garden and Microsoft's fenced Ghetto, both greedily making our software 30% more expensive and censoring what can be offered. Those who would trade their freedom for security will end up with neither.

Thats like voting with our wallets to be patronized like children and loose all freedom we're used to having. In the new fully controlled Apple and Microsoft future, we won't really own the devices we paid for. In the name of security, we're already seeing this "secure boot" atrocity, which prevents us from booting any operating system of our choosing, unless those OS makers were able to obtain some special keys, which they have to tickle out of Intel and M$. Maybe large distributions will make it, but smaller ones probably will disappear.

And after downgrading my PC to Windows 8, I certainly know not to buy a Windphone until Windows 10 is released. Because its like starting with Windows 1.0 again, and M$ always takes 3 attempts to get it right, so it won't be till Windows 10, before it goes from barebones to actually being complete enough to be convenient. If they keep Steve "I'm the only one with a clue" Sinofski for another round, it'll probably end up 4 attempts instead of 3...

I don't blame M$ for that part, Android 1.0 wasn't as slick as it is today either. Apple was opposite there, iOS 1.0 was very slick, but from there was moving so slow, its behind the curve now. Still just rows and rows of icons pfff

Poor Nokia got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, while they originally were the best prepared shop and could have owned everything.

They could still be where Samsung is now, by doing what Samsung does: make different phones with different operating systems, so people who dislike some OS are not prevented from buying their hardware.

Nokia: sell your phones like this: on unpacking the phone and turning it on, you get a menu with four choices of what OS you want to install: Bada, Windphone8, Android, Symbian, or Tizen or whatever else strikes your fancy. Nobody would even argue at that point, they would just be buying your phones. Bang!

I really don't wish to see Sony killed by the Koreans, but...

Sony had better shape up...

They always offer last year's technology for this year's premium prices.

The Sony chief argued: "quad core power is unnecessary in mobile phones", but then he goes on to charge for his phones as if they had quad core power installed. Besides, a well implemented quad core processor saves battery over the old dual cores.

Sadly, there's just nothing 'premium' about Sony's phones, only some of them have a nice design, others are kinda clunky, and technology and features are nothing you couldn't get from Huawai or ZTE out of China. On top of that, Sony never seems up to the task of using the latest Android, let alone getting updates out in a timely manner. I guess they fumble around too much with their software overlay.

Sony's software overlay isn't bad, but nowhere near essential enough to warrant missing out on newer versions of Android for one minute.

A message to Sony: get your hardware up to snuff and offer your software as separate apps, so they don't end up blocking timely Android updates. This would make your phones a whole lot more interesting. If any Sony phone I bought had the option of being like a Nexus (without having to void my warranty for it), I'd spend a whole lot more time considering smartphones from Sony.

The way it is now, I figure that two years of frustration with no updates would follow the purchase.

Looks good, but wait... what's that?

thats the same dumb screen ratio of the apple tablet,

making it too wide to fit into most pockets

and HD movies look ridiculous on it...

We can only hope it fails, because RT is basically an Apple style jail cell without the pretty garden.

The more consumers stupidly vote with their dollars for monolithic control by a single corporation over the devices they purchase, the sooner the internet will revert to something akin to the dark ages of Compuserve and AOL a decade ago.

And, you will find you don't really own what you paid for anymore. Like a Playstation, if you alter it, hack it, put something on it they don't want you to, you'll get sued, locked out, penalized.

All that can be done with clever combinations of copyright and license agreements you have to sign at purchase, which usually nobody reads.

Like Apple's new Lightning connector: copyrighted, even though it does nothing that a standard USB connector couldn't do just as well. And it has a chip built in, solely to prevent you from plugging something in that Apple doesn't want you to plug in.

I hope people wake up before these things turn even more extreme.

Re: Is the Register sponsored by Apple/Google these days?

No, they have just recognized that Sinofski is full of shit.

Most of the Windows 8 changes amounts to moving deck chairs on the Titanic.

After installing it on my system, I don't mind so much that things were changed, but I do mind some of the absolutely dumb, half baked changes. I thought they had long enough time and blabbered enough about their own brilliance of conception to at least get basics right...

But all those metro style settings screens etc are full screen only, and while they grind away doing something, you can't even flip to another window to do some work, while keeping an eye on the progress.

And once you switch to using your microsoft account for the windows log-in, all of a sudden, the whole advantage of booting with lightning speed from your SSD is wasted by the login suddenly taking 30 seconds or longer!

There are a few improvements that are actually useful to computer users, but most of this rearrangement is done in hopes to start selling phones and tablets, and is totally counter productive on a computer with a large screen and extensive multitasking capabilities.

Re: "begs the question of why the plaintiffs didn't just use such a method"

The method referred to was technically involved and required a lot of reading for one thing.

More importantly, it involved voiding the warranty and worse, the chance to brick the phone if something went wrong.

Biggest surprise is, that people are suing only now! I hope they win, cause corporations have been way out of hand ever since Microscum basically managed to evade the rules, and come out with only very minor repercussions.

Re: wtf? No. this review is poor

I thought so too... The arrogance is so thick... Not to mention he seems to support the patent on rectangles with rounded corners.

Why is the guy waxing on about a stupid Macbook, while reviewing a budget beater? It looks nothing like one, unless you have the coarsest of perceptions...

A thing worth criticizing: For being a cheap plastic bomber at £650, there should have been some money left for a slightly better display, given that Sony will sell you a T13 model made from all aluminum and magnesium alloy with the same CPU for very little more.

But of course, TheReg reviews never actually do measure the screens for color space, contrast, illumination, black value or viewing angles. So the reviewers always end up just blabbering unfounded personal impressions, that are meaningless to the 90% of people that don't happen to share matching prejudice and individual perceptions.

Re: What exactly COULD one engineer outside a color scheme, and wallpaper?

Lots.

Apparently, your mind is as closed as a bank branch on Sunday.

Re: "Both models will run Windows 8, of course."

The Reg should know better than to write a willy nilly statement like that... Some people might not automatically catch the fact, that this version, running on a Tegra will only run Windows RT.

So this device qualifies as a WART and you can't run any of your existing software on it.

Nor can you download any free or open source software you might want to run - only Microfoist's 'trying-to-be-like-Crapple' Appstore stuff...

Yep, slowly turning windows into a fenced ghetto - don't hope that the media will save consumers from misinformation or corporate abuse of any kind.

Re: So...

I'll take any phone OS, so long as its not Microshuft.

The hopefully ex-monopoly is out of the question...

Re: iSheep

You mean the knowledge, intelligence and social status boosting iOwnersheep ?

@craigj: Scale is unrelated to people being sheep or not.

Sheepness relates to people who allow certain things to be done with them, like being herded around a walled garden, with the promise of keeping out bad wolves and the complexities of the real world.

Interpreting the regular shearing they are given by their greedy master as a religious experience is a symptom that might point us more in the direction of Lemmings though.