Posts by Captain Queeg

@Truffle

I doubt Apple care, they seem to make phones a lot of people do like.

In the end, the measure of any business isn't marketing spend, cost base, market share or any metric beyond return on investment.In this world, rightly or wrongly profits and therefore ROI count. And actually in the long term Apple don't matter to Samsung,

Sansung are dependent on Google, which is strategic suicide, just as any x86 system builder is dependent on Microsoft. The only possible outcome where manufacturers can't differentiate is a race to the bottom.

The bottom line is IOS can do a few things Android can't, just as Android can do a few things IOS can't, but Samsung currently can do nothing HTC, Hauwei or any other Android licensee can't do - usually more cheaply.

Samsung have done well to defy gravity for so long, but the pressure will always there in the market they're in.It's reaching the point where even Blackberry look like having a better proposition, not better than Android, but better than any single licensee.

Re: according to a report.

Good point - i may be mistaken, but IIRC the original report said this wasn't fixable in software/firmware.

So I wonder if that was correct or FUD. I'm not sure 10.10.2 makes things any clearer one way or the other.

Re: Second!!!!

I have a slightly different take.

I *love* a well made watch just as some *love* vinyl and just as I write with a good quality fountain pen - because i like the feel and experience. I used to wear a watch every day.

But, even though I have 5 pretty high end expensive time pieces on my bedroom dresser, I now *never* put one on (save interviews, weddings etc.). I've thought about why this is and the best i can do is simply that a wrist watch doesn't have enough added value (features?) for me to spend the time pulling it on - which might sound odd, but is the truth - so I rely on my phone.

So far nothing i've seen in the wearable stakes has made me consider one, not even the iWatch which is probably the most functionally rich offering but still leaves me cold.

The cellphone, it seems to me is the new pocket watch - but unlike the pocket watch it has sufficient added value not to be replaced by the convenience of a wrist watch.

The secret to adoption (if there will ever be one) will be a killer app of some description but I can't see where it's coming from.

Re: three of top five...

That's a fair point but taken in the round it's worse news for Samsung than Apple.

Whatever the relative merits of iOS and Android, if anyone wants iOS they can only but it from Apple. The closest Samsung has is Touch-Wiz, which doesn't have the same draw as it's tied to Android and increasingly Google services.

Samsung are going to get eaten by the rise of the Chinese more than Apple because their point of distinction is so less defined or embedded. I expect Apple will continue a steady decline and settle at 8-10%, but I can't see where Samsung will settle.

It's a more or less perfect copy of the PC world with Apple using (often purely emotional) pulls and selling standard kit at margins Wintel vendors can only dream of - Nice work if you can get it.

Strategically, if they wanted to be a major long term player in the phone market, Samsung should have stuck with Tizen and gritted it out.

Surely?

Any decent factory car kit these days includes voice dial? Unlike Siri that'll be optimised for the car mic, etc. too.

Re: Ok

Let's hope it's not in the same way MS Office revolutionised computing education...

> Why would I want to pay through the nose to be effectively locked into the Amazon ecosystem?

That's a really good point, but Apple seem to have been able to achieve it and if anyone should be able to, it should be Jeff?

Maybe the iPod>>iPhone migration path is just more compelling than the Kindle>>Fire Phone. Certainly the kindle seems less like a natural feed to a phone than the iPod classic does, but not massively so.

The thing that puts me off is Firefly - very clever for sure, but the idea of paying Bezos top money to allow me to buy more from him more easly just grates.

@Ledswinger

"It's the whole aesthetic rather than the sound quality ...."

"Not it isn't. It's about pantomime, and the pretence of sound quality."

I agree there's probably some confirmation bias in using Vinyl, but is that such a bad thing? If anyone derives pleasure from the process, regardless of it being aesthetic or pantomime, what's the harm?

Personally, my Vinyl went the way of all plastic years ago and it won't be making a return. But Enjoyment of music in whatever form factor can't ever be described as objective. Fidelity is only part of the equation - one of my favourite tracks is the original pressing of "Try a little Tenderness" - mastered on to CD full of hiss, distortion and obvious loss of fidelity at the recording stage - but it adds to the atmosphere of the track immensely even on "clinical" CD.

Re: Confused

"What would Mr. Jobs have said?!"

Probably "Jagwire"?

Re: Do iPhones/iPads allow SIM swap without a restart

I have to disagree - swapping SIMs on an iPhone is a royal pain - can I ever find that s*dding SIM unlocking tool?

I've reached the point of having ordered 100 of them so i can keep a stock to lose as I'm not about to start using bent paperclips on delicate electronics.

Any system that's "fingers only required" seems far better to me.

Re: “Hands are made* to shake hands, not for bending,” he advised.

And that's just what they do? :-)

Re: Still don't get it...

Because not everybody is happy being told what they can and can't do with the device that they have purchased.

Fair enough and it's a very valid point, but that doesn't answer the question posed of why anyone would *need* to. Prefer to, maybe, but regardless of any distinction between IOS or Android, the basic point is play with fire for whatever reason and you have to accept you may just get brunt.

Re: particularly acute for the long-suffering women of the western world?

Not every woman, my wife keeps her phone in her bra... :-/

@Alistair - Re: Once some players drop out then....

So still profit then, just expected rather than current?

@Paul Shirley

Apple were late to the mp3 player market and it didn't seem to hold them back.

Not that I'm not sceptical, I reached the point years back where my phone had replaced my watch.

Re: One as bad as another

I have EE4G on my iPad and Three on my phone.

To be fair to three, while their customer service is less than great, so long as you grit your teeth you can *usually* get away with just the one awful testing call.

EE on the other hand seem able to set new levels of incompetence at every turn. I've *never* had a first call fix with EE.

Now, compare that record to the consistently stellar performance of Orange Customer Services in the early-mid 90s. What on earth went wrong? Oh yes, I remember, France Telecom...

Re: they already destroyed the evidence.

Or do "they" just hide it better now?

Would foil wrapping my handset help? :-)

Re: Not so smart; desperate housewife is desperate.

Jobs wasn't ever averse to sticking the boot in. Endless references to cheap plasticky buttons slides of BlackBerry keyboards and such. The BSOD on the OSX windows share icon too.

Oh yes, he could mix it with the best (worst?) in the most childish of ways...

Re: Really Voda?

Let's not forget the then market leader Vodafone UK were overtaken by orange when it was run by Hutchison so my guess is they're running scared.

Re: The Disabled, Sitting at Home

@Kurt Guntheroth

<irony>

That's just Sour Grapes. Who are you to criticise the authors "I'm all right Jack" approach. Your independence obviously isn't worth 5 minutes on his or anyone else's journey time....

</irony>

To be fair, the whole article is a crock, if this had been written 100 years ago, it'd be claiming the Wright Brothers were insane and Henry Ford would do better using Eugenics to breed a faster horse. :-/

Google are experimenting which is great. And while we're on the subject of Henry Ford these critics who scoff might well remember his quote - "if you think you can, or you think you can't, you're probably right..."

Re: For added irony, on the story's page

> btw, how do you encrypt a pigeon?

With a blender? No, actually, that may introduce a degree of latency to delivery of messages.

Re: GPS is shite ....

You're dead right, GPS lacks local knowledge and experience. But...

What GPS does do is give a consistent arrival time, maybe not quickest or easiest, but consistent.

I guess it's the McDonalds model, the food will be bland and you can easily do better if you know the local area but a Big Mac will take your hunger away and the loos will be guaranteed to be clean...

Also, FWIW, for medical reasons, I've started regularly using black cabs over the last 6 months and I've found the drivers generally OK. On the other hand, perhaps I'm just as bigoted as them? :-)

Re: Unfortunate turn of events?

Well, looking at it objectively, Apple here are the common denominator and the most litigious, so my guess is they've decided to draw a line.

I guess the more interesting question is why? A number of options spring to mind - in no particular order:

1.Fear of defeat - possible and with the precident it would set potentially very damaging.

2.A genuine waking up and smelling the increasing expensive legal coffee - again possible but I think probably the most unlikely reason.

3. Management time - Cook has talked about the next big thing being imminent and time spent in litigation is time spent away from what has to be more important stuff for Apple. Irrespective of the merits of whatever it is they're talking about launching, and it good be "insanely great" a turkey or anywhere in between, one thing I am sure of is that Cook won't want any distractions from it either internally or in the press, so by winding down hostilities he gets the most benign environment he can engineer to launch into.

On the other hand it could just be coincidence.,.

Re: So, let me get this right...

I agree. I'd have thought failing gracefully to unexpected input is always important in any process.

I struggle to understand why you received down votes.

Re: Waste of space on the phone.

TuneIn on IOS on the other hand really is great.

Seems a shame to tar all versions with the same brush?

Re: Glasshole

The P is also silent as in swimming...

Re: Still better

Agreed,, in comparison Apple Maps still leave much to be desired, but Cupertino have the advantage that they don't rely on ad income and offer software to sell hardware.

If Google over egg things in the ad space, there will come a tipping point at which G Maps become too much of a faf to use given the layering of ads.

Not there yet granted, but things seem to be starting to go the same way as all that "value add" bloatware on windows PCs.

It's a delicate balancing act for them.

Re: "Apple made no promise that Siri would operate without fail"

So by that reasoning, if your mobile drops a call you expect it replaced? Likewise storm clouds impair your Satellite TV twice a year, so you want the dish replaced? That's what working without fail would mean.

The fact that something is software is a red herring.

In the UK at least a test of merchantable quality applies, not perfection. If perfection was the yardstick, we'd still be banging the rocks together. And love it or loath it, I don't think anyone could argue that the iPhone 4S was of merchantable quality. These litigants were chancers who got caught out.

Re: I struggle to see how Office could be useful on a tablet

I suffered a stroke last summer and it's left me with issues typing with my left hand.

Siri, Dragon Dictation and iWork have literally saved my career.

This is being dictated using a quality Plantronics headset in a quiet room and I've deliberately not corrected any mistakes there may be. Having used it all for a few months, there's an approach to dictation that allows software tools to get it right pretty much ninety nine percent of the time,

If Microsoft can arrive at this level of usability with enterprise integration, I'm sold.

Re: What to do?

How would a phone or tablet innovate?

Jobs did well at Apple because he took existing under developed segments and turbocharged them, moved them on in some way. As has been noted many times MS could never get tablets to sell, jobs worked out why not and the rest is history.

Just copying with with any old "me too" phone or tablet will only work if MS or Windows have a big pull as brands. Which I don't think they do.

Win phone and surface only really look to be capable of being minority players in their markets.

Re: not true

So partnering with Dixons AND CPW?

Can there ever have been a more mediocre retail strategy, heh heh.

Re: Leaps and bounds?

Actually, I'm returning to iOS after spells with Android and BB10.

For me BB10 wasn't the right choice. It's a bit sad really as I wanted it to be, but it wasn't. :-/

Re: RE: Jesus give it a break with the rootkit nonsense.

> (I'll buy their headphones.

> They make good headphones,

> and they don't contain code.)

Nah, Sennheiser and AKG beat them, hands down...

Re: Ah, the QL—fond memories!

It's very very we'll emulated on Windows and OSX.

I boot an MG machine up more regularly than I should :-)

http://www.terdina.net/ql/q-emulator.html

@ACx - Great comment...

Very fair commentary, but the next 50 years will knock it out of Americans in the same way the 2nd half of the 20th century knocked it out of the British.

Time was to many of my countrymen that if it was owner by, occupied by or made in Britain it was automatically sub standard.

The reality of 50 years of being owned by the Americans has done to the UK what 50 years of being owned by the Chinese will do to the USA.