Posts by Gulfie

+1 to that

I bought a 3G knowing what I was taking on, and I wasn't bothered about it. When I did get bothered (iAd for starters, plus a long history of pulling useful apps from the store) I switched to Android.

I'm with you part of the way but...

Lucas is complaining about the physical enclosure of the device being close to or a copy of a light sabre. Yes, light sabres are a fictional weapon but it is perfectly legitimate to build, market and sell kids toys that look like the thing in the film. So you've got two things potentially going on:

1. Trademark violation - the product has been deliberately made to look like something from Star Wars that has been trademarked, so the manufacturer is trading on the back of somebody else's reputation. It doesn't have to be identical, just similar enough for a normal person to think it is a Light Sabre.

2. Copyright violation - if it is identical to the handle on a toy light sabre then the manufacturer is definitely violating Lucas' copyright.

Ahem...

Large IT outsourcing companies both pay low wages to under-skilled staff AND reduce the head count as much as they can - I used to work for one. My company lost a number of large government contracts as a direct result of this (incapable of delivering to timescale, requirements, budget or often all three), yet totally failed to recognise the issue because there is no immediate negative impact on the bottom line they so treasured. In fact in the short term doing this made the company look better than it actually was.

This is the effect of American capitalism (deliberate emphasis on the country) where share price and earnings per share are the only thing that matters when measuring company performance.

Unfortunately it takes a few years for the effects of this stupid approach to employee management to be properly seen. Once entrenched it is a position that is impossible to escape from because it involves improving employee benefits across the board (20% pay rise, everybody?) which has an immediate, expensive and highly visible negative impact on those things that Wall Street love to measure company performance by.

Companies that work in this way deserve to fail.

You'll notice that there are a small number of big companies that don't work this way. Like them or not, Apple and Google (to name but two) have a thriving business that is reinforecd by the quality of their products, give a good benefits package (I can't speak for the Apple Store mind), have low staff turnover and their pick of the labour market. It's a great positive feedback loop.

Meanwhile large IT outsourcing companies repeatedly bugger up what should be simple contracts because they bid low and suffer from high staff turnover. A classic negative feedback loop and why I'll never be an employee of one again.

The key here is density

If the two trophies are the same size, then Cocaine is simply more dense than gold (and gold isn't exactly lightweight).

According to Google, gold is 19.3g per cc (cubic centimeter) but it was unable to give me a figure for marching powder.

Or...

Simply apply a layer of laquer to the case thus providing a cheap and simple mechanism to insulate the antenna from the hand.

Existing buyers could use a roll of sticky tape and go round the edge of the phone with it a couple of times - just fold the overlap down, it'll look really stylish!

"Apple and its developers will take most of the money"

I'm not sure how you can reach that conclusion.

The very markets you finger as high piracy are those same markets where Apple products are stratospherically overpriced and therefore have a tiny market share. I'm going to ignore them completely for the purposes of this reply, assuming revenue ~£0.00 on both sides.

The good/popular applications on the iPhone are swiftly starting to appear on the Android store as well, at similar prices. Angry Birds (coming soon) and F1 Timing (last week) are just two that spring to mind.

Nobody seems to dispute that Android smartphone sales will outstrip iPhone sales soon, and end up dominating this space. On face value then, more app sales too, and more profits to developers. The available market for Android applications will be huge, so sales revenues will end up being bigger on Android than they are on iPhone.

Apple will earn more per phone than the Android handsets on sale. But the volumes shipped could easily compensate for the lower profit per handset. You also have to remember that it is cheaper for the networks to put an Android smartphone in the hands of a customer than an iPhone. Therefore it will pentrate further down the social scale than the iPhone in every market. And those people will still buy apps.

Analysis fail?

Why, they spend money

And we can help them to spend *even more* money if we have good aggregate statistics on our installed user base.

Won't somebody think of James Corden?

Please, please stop wasting money on Getty Images. We must think of James Corden in these fiscally challenged times.

Last night I watched 30 minutes of BBC2 andwas outraged after not catching a single glimpse of James Corden. Use the money saved to ensure that the hilarious Mr Corden is seen regularly on all your channels, I really don't think he's on our screens enough at the moment. Perhaps you could arrange for him to commentate at Wimbledon? Or be a celebrity ball boy? He has the perfect figure for it, after all...

It's called Interpol

In the same way that we can ask for the arrest of somebody who has committed a serious crime here and then left the country, so can the Americans.

Achieving extradition is another matter entirely because evidence will have to be presented to show sufficient proof that this person would be charged with a crime. Unless of course you are subject to our wonderful, balanced 'agreement' with the Yanks, or the extradition is between EEC member states. In either case it would appear that extradition is all too easy and without sufficient safeguards in place.

It does sound completely daft giving this guy bail though. There can be few people more capable of getting out of the country after having their passport confiscated than a spy. And if there is any truth to the allegations (which seem fairly substantive) then you can also imagine that the Russians will be keen to ensure that he is nowhere to be found. Or they might be happy for him to be found once they've arranged for him to stop breathing.

No iPhone 4 for you then...

...as that shiny metal band between the screen and the rear of the phone is the antenna.

Point taken but...

The headline would have been better as "Staff bullied by employer and general public at phone non-launch".

Those staff unlucky enough to be in pretty much any Apple reseller are between a rock and a hard place. I think this article describes their situation perfectly whilst demonstrating very clearly that the general public, you and I, are being played by the marketing drones.

If the various shops put a big sign in the window a day or two back "We have n iPhone 4's to sell on Thursday" then there would be far less stress on employees and customers. The resellers will have know for days what the situation was going to be yet still made their stores open early even with nothing to sel...

Yes they are... in the UK

You need to appreciate the difference - make that significant difference - in cover price between the UK and the US. For example...

I subscribe to an American magazine 'Model Airplane News' and for $60 I get airmail delivery of the magazine for two years. That's 24 copies or $2.50 a copy - about £1.50. The equivalent UK magazine charges £75 for a two year subscription or £3 a copy (the cover price is £4).

I've not bought a single copy of any UK modelling magazine for over 5 years. All the good kit is distributed worldwide so I don't miss any reviews and the magazines are less in the pocket of the kit manufacturers so reviews tend to be more objective.

Oh come on...

Yes iTunes is required(ish) to load the device but beyond that there is no tie to Apple or the iTunes store. Get a life. And some perspective.

What?!

You can do the thief for robbery the moment he picks up your property and leaves the house with it. Heck, if he reached over the fence and took something from the garden it is still theft. And although the police might think the homeowner is a bit of a muppet in the open door scenario, a crime has still been committed, so your metaphor is fundamentally flawed.

Even in the street if you find something where the owner can be identified (e.g. a wallet with a credit card in it) then you are obliged to hand it over to the police because you can identify somebody associated with the item you have found.

In other words, the knowledge that you're acquiring something (be it a clock or some WiFi data) that you know full well is not your own, or is intended for you, is indication enough that you should not be taking it.

I think the mere point that the Google code used the car's GPS to correct the location data associated with the WiFi traffic is enough to show that there were enough hands on the code that the 'accidental recording' claim is rubbish. This wasn't a hobby program and some open source thrown together in a rush as Google would like us to think. People would have had to (a) make provision for and (b) configure a storage location for all that extra data (probably an order of magnitude larger storage requirement as well)

I'd like to correct your post.

He's not so fat now.

Oh dear...

Most people I know, regardless of the phone they have, actually quite like the iPhone. Those that are in a position to afford one, but don't have one, don't like the walled garden model. That's their choice. I've just switched from iPhone to Android for the same reason. Initially ambivalent (it didn't affect me) I've grown to dislike the controlfreakery, and I think Apple are going to regret it in the long haul.

You like your iPhone, that's fine. I like my Macs and my Nexus One, my wife likes my iPhone. Just chill, we all have our preferences, and spleen venting in this manner does you and your 'case' for the iPhone more harm than good.

Nice idea but...

... are there any spare patent lawyers left to look at the case?!

It's principle and precedence, stupid

Erm... whilst I would agree that the likelihood of the data collected being useful may appear to be small, it is the principle and the precedence that are important here.

Taking a small step back, what gives Google the right to drive around my neighbourhood and record the approximate location, MAC address and other information it can extract from my router? Or my neighbour's router? Or everyone's in my town? Or indeed the whole country?

Moving back to the data issue - I didn't give Google permission to interecept my internet traffic. Neither has anybody else who had data collected in this trawl. If nothing is done then Google might decide they have implied consent to continue collecting this type of data. How useful might it be to fit a data collection black box to every Google car, so that it automatically does this data grab as it is driven round on completely unrelated business?

Just because my data is out there, does not mean I want it collected and analysed. To do so in this country would probably contravene 'wiretap' related laws anyway (see: PHORM). The accidental collection of the odd bit of data here and there IS no big deal. The systematic collection of data across several countries certainly is a big deal.

'Despite' Nexus One - that's a sideshow

It doesn't really matter how many the Nexus One sells, what is important to Google is that Android sells well. With the G1 and now the Nexus 1 Google have phones that they know inside out and can rapidly prototype new OS features on a working phone. Developers can buy the phone unlocked and debug with it. And it does give Google a fall-back position.

Incidentally it's taken me just eight weeks from getting a Nexus One for development only, to deciding to ditch my iPhone altogether. SIM-Only contract is so much cheaper... Visual Voicemail not so important in the general scheme of things.

I'm also a fanboi...

I'm aware that you're a troll, or a shill, or whatever. But I'm going to write a reasoned response anyway, because it will help people to understand what Apple is doing, and why.

Steve wants people to write only for his platform, and for his platform to be a walled garden that it is difficult for the end user to migrate away from.

Introducing the 'no cross-compilation' condition into the developer agreement allows Apple to prevent Flash application getting into the iTunes store. It also allows Apple to threaten any developer who writes a really good application for (say) Android and then writes a native Objective-C version which looks and feels the same. They just claim it's cross-compiled. Not originating on the iPhone.

This might sound far fetched, but without a differentiator, all mobile devices are commodities. If the key apps you need are available on iPhone and Android (and Windows 7 Mobile and RIM and PalmOS) and data is in the cloud or quickly transferrable via desktop synchronisation tools then users can switch platform quickly when it is expedient for them to do so. This is not good news for Apple (this is also why PCs have got cheaper and cheaper, they all do the same thing, the only difference is price).

If Apple can obstruct low-cost development of cross-platform applications (job done there, thank you very much) then software houses may decide to focus on fewer platforms. If I develop a top-notch Android application and then write an iPhone version from scratch that looks and feels the same, it would be in Apple's interest to ban the iPhone version. Even if I wrote a successful iPhone application and then ported it to Android, the same still applies. Even in the event that both versions of the application get published in their respective stores, Apple has still achieved a partial victory because their customer's migration options are limited.

I've almost reached the point at which I am going to give up my iPhone altogether, and use my Nexus One full time. The Nexus has flaws (related to Google's ways of doing business) but those flaws can be fixed with third party software - software that Apple would never dream of allowing. Not to mention the highly successful Cyanogen(mod) 'Android on steroids'. If I get the next iPhone on contract at all, it will only be to re-sell it almost immediately to somebody who wants one on PAYG.

You can prize my Macs from my cold, dead hands though.

Xtand Go

I bought a Xtand Go, it's a really nice bit of kit at a reasonable price. I subsequently found that my Nexus One is also a perfect fit.