"Phablet"

Can we please all agree to not accept "phablet" as a term? Thank you.

Just 3G and decent data allowances would be nice

Try using Vodafone's 3G network anywhere in central london during the working week! I'm normally lucky if I can load a mobile optimised web page. I would be perfectly happy with 3G for mobile use if they sorted out the backhaul in congested areas. Also, they are exceedingly stingy with data allowances (probably as a consequence of limited capacity). Fix those first please!

Adobe Reader

It staggers me how many security holes pop up in Adobe Reader. It has one function: Display PDFs on the screen and maybe print them if you want to. If Adobe stripped away all the bloat they surround it with then would most of those disappear?

(PS - I know alternatives like Foxit exist. If only my company's IT department would let us install them...)

O2, great service but terrible speed. BT actually not that bad!

I was with O2 for three years. The connect was steady as a rock, the support team was great but the speed... I was lucky to get 2.5M in the evening. This in central London less than half a mile from the exchange. I was sad to leave them, but when I could barely stream SD iPlayer and HD was an impossible dream I decided to move on. I would definitely be leaving now from what I've heard about Sky's service.

Slight digression, but after O2 I signed up for BT infinity... and haven't looked back. I actually get the advertised speed of 40M which I don't think has ever happened with any provider. The connection has been very stable over a year at two different addresses.

Not all rosy however, BT's customer services are a confusing mess. It took them three attempts to place my home move order - on the final attempt I had to speak to four different people but they did give me three months free service to apologise for making such a meal of it!

I always really liked SimCity 3000, except for the fact that whatever machine I've tried it on it always crashes periodically. The new SimCity sounds like bit of a pain. I'm hoping a crack appears at some point - then I would actually buy it!

App Updates and Pulling the Battery Out..

I used to have an 8900 Curve. I found that every time I installed an update it would insist on doing a full reboot of the device, which took about 3 mins, for each INDIVIDUAL update. If I went into Blackberry App World and had 7 app updates that would mean 7 reboots. Has that been improved, or was I being a bit dim?

Also, I found that at least once a week I would get weird problems such as artefacts on the screen or menu items/icons disappearing. I would have to pull the battery out and put it back in to do a "hard reset" in order to restore things to normal. Does that still happen on more recent models, or did I just have a duff one?

The main benefit for me..

Upgrading to 2007 and above removed the pain-in-the-a*se 65,536 row limit in Excel! I was so happy with that I overlooked the upheaval with the ribbon. In fact I don't mind the ribbon these days, the one thing that really does my head in is applying custom cell borders in Excel. Otherwise I've come to quite like it.

The only thing I really noticed with 2007-2010 was improved SharePoint integration so I agree with the premise of the article, it is starting to get more and more difficult to see the point in upgrading.

There is a killer way to make money here...

Why not kit out several of the most popular music venues in London (e.g. O2 arena, Brixton Academy, Apollo) with cameras and a crew for event nights. Stream this footage via youtube and charge a low fee to those who couldn't get tickets on a pay per view basis. The video quality doesn't have to be perfect in order to protect ticket and live dvd sales, but the vast majority of concerts never go anywhere near a dvd anyway. Record companies can help shore up falling revenues, and Google might actually be able to make a return on Youtube.

So they're trying to generate Apple-sized hype for, er, Office? I think their marketing people need a reality check. I would guess a lot of users won't even get in front of it for some time anyway, my company has only just (grudgingly) rolled out 2010 and Visio, Sharepoint and Project are stuck on the 2003 versions. I accept our IT might be a bit backwards, but we can't be the only ones.

And as previous commenters have mentioned, most users either won't care or will actively protest against any change. At least with our 2003 - 2010 upgrade we get a lot of useful new features like 1M rows in Excel to sweeten it for them.

O2, good but slow..

I was with O2 for about two and a half years. The connections was absolutely solid, never dropped even once as far as I know. Their phone support was very good too, the people were knowledgeable and very polite.

However, I was lucky if I got 2.5Mbps. This is in the centre of London less than a mile from the exchange. Streaming iPlayer and youtube became more and more difficult so reluctantly I bit the bullet when BT cabled up my cabinet for Infinity.

Infinity, so far, has been excellent. I get the full 40Mbps advertised and it has been very reliable. The only gripes are the 40GB download limit, which is scarily easy to hit at those speeds, and BT's customer "service". The less said about which the better. While O2's service was superb, speed is king these days, and unless they invest in FTTC they are better off selling the business before BT and Virgin eat their lunch.

Not far off 4chan

And their constant attempts to con the gullible with "Delete system32, make your PC run faster"

Piler

For work email, I have one folder for stuff I need to keep (login details etc) and otherwise live in a state of blissful anarchy. I normally have about 25-30 messages in my inbox and delete anything I'm not sure about. I never empty deleted items until my mailbox fills up, then I just delete the oldest month's messages. Seems to work well as a trade off between time spent organising versus risk of losing emails as I can usually find things in deleted items if I need to.

Gmail, that's a different story. Pure, unadulterated piling. I delete obvious spam and leave everything else in there. The search works so well I don't even bother with tagging or flagging anything!

If all they do is improve Smart TV UI's...

I can't imagine an Apple TV would offer any actual new features beyond those available on Smart TVs already available from the likes of Samsung et al or even just plugging your laptop into an HDMI port. What they might be able to do is improve the user experience for such devices.

There was a good article on El Reg a month or so ago bemoaning the awful interfaces on Smart TVs. If Apple came along and redefined the UI like they did with, say, first gen iPhone vs Blackberry, then they might be able to make some waves.

I miss the humour

I loved the game, and I think it spawned the most successful game based cartoon series. Very few games are made with anything like the level of humour this had anymore. The odd point and click game has some snappy writing (e.g. Telltale's excellent Sam and Max series) but the majority of big budget games seems to be relentlessly po-faced nowadays.

It's the apps, stupid

As the article states, Microsoft desperately need to build up the app ecosystem. If someone is considering moving away from Android or iOS and finds apps like Spotify missing then it kills the idea right there.

If they are really serious about Windows Phone then maybe they should offer WP8 development consultants to key mobile app development houses? On iOS the majority of app sales go to a small number of development houses so subsiding development resources to help them port might give the whole thing a jumpstart.

Although I'm no Windows 8 fan, I hope MS do success with WP8. I think the market needs more competition. If RIM deliver the goods on BB10 and MS can get WP8 into a credible position we should see some real innovation in the mobile world.

Raspberry PI really needed?

I have recently joined the Pi owners club and am in the process of setting it up for use as a media centre. I don't really see what advantage it gives you in terms of learning programming if you already have access to a PC, it is simply a lower cost way of getting started. All schools must have an IT room by now so why is an RPi needed?

Also, I think it is dangerous to completely abandon the current curriculum. We do need more coders, but we also need everybody to be able to drive Office, understand how OS's work etc. RPis aren't the way to achieve this. The biggest RPi market so far seems to be fully grown techie geeks like me!

Views <> People

824M views doesn't necessarily mean 824M people.... I assume that some people will have watch it many times!

Portable Consoles, maybe..

I think there is a case to make this argument for portable consoles like the Vita and Nindendo DS. In this case, mobile gaming is a natural evolution - similar (or better) hardware power but only one device to carry around. Locking down of game purchases is at platform level, rather than specific device level. Access to titles from a much wider range of publishers...

With the poor 3DS sales I have wondered why Nintendo doesn't consider becoming a publisher for iPhone/Android et al? I would love to have Nintendo quality games on my phone, Professor Layton or Pokemon would be ideal commute fodder and I can't be bothered to carry around two devices.

For home consoles, I don't think this will happen - at least not completely. The casual market will probably go down the mobile/tablet route to an extent but you can't beat good old console multiplayer. Just Dance etc sell by the boat load and I can't see those running on a phone in the near future!

Vodafone Customers Get it "Free"

I also get free access to Bt Wifi/Openzone with Vodafone. However, my login stopped working about 6 months ago and despite several complaints they have never fixed it. Won't hold my breath for this one!

The only use I've found for the wifi so far though is receiving iMessages while underground but that is a very minor benefit. I don't see why you'd need it otherwise. By the time you connect either your train has arrived or pulled into the tunnel if you are already on board.