People bored of mobes, say magic quadrant wizards Global spend on smartphones rose at the slowest rate since 2013 for the second quarter of 2015, according to magic quadrant wizards Gartner. Worldwide sales of smart mobes totalled 330 million, up 13.5 per cent from the second quarter of 2014. In contrast sales for the whole of 2014 rose 28.4 per cent to 1.2 billion, compared …
Yup, you're getting old.
And so am I.
Old enough to remember my French professor telling us how wonderful it was to have a "living language".
He just neglected to say that it was all the morons who don't know how to speak their own language that actually impose changes that end up becoming fact.
That's why we now see all those things that "effect" change (gah!), or comments like "he would of" (beurk!). Not to mention the eternal confusion between they're and their.
We can now add another one to the ever-growing list. The beauty of a living language appears to be the infected pimple on a teen's face.
Now get off my lawn !
>> He just neglected to say that it was all the morons who don't know how to speak their own language that actually impose changes that end up becoming fact.
The morons are essentially just better at identifying the aspects of our language that are unnecessarily difficult or confusing or arbitrary.
IMO there's nothing so great about English as a language that it should be preserved as it currently is in language textbooks.
I suppose it's nice that English has very little grammar relative to most other languages and is thus fairly easy to learn (at least initially). Other than that, meh.
>> The difference between their and they're is really unnecessarily arbitrary and confusing. From now on, I'll just replace either with "cheese".
Drives me nuts too but modern English is full of words and phrases and grammar that would have been considered sloppy or incorrect 200 years ago.
>From now on, I'll just replace either with "cheese".
My point exactly, Jennifer.
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On a possibly related note, I heard of some research recently where it was suggested that theatrical entertainment (mostly TV/film) lights up the emotion-processing centres of the brain with its constant diet of fear, excitement, joy, etc. At the same time, the pre-frontal cortex (critical-thinking) goes dark. Its hard to enjoy such entertainment when you apply logic to what you are seeing and hearing. It gets worse with music videos, which are designed to change scenes faster than you can process the images. The point being, that the brain "prunes" itself for functions we don't use and expands the capabilities for things we do use. Thus a diet of emotional claptrap actually reduces your ability to reason and increases emotional response to stimuli.
I wonder if this has anything to do with the increasing lack of precision and variety in language? Compare (children's) literature pre-1940 with today. Are thought processes and hence language today simply a reflection of unfocussed, fuzzy ("like"), emotional thinking? Is there a link between TV and violence, not so much "monkey see, monkey do" but the fact that we are more likely to make a knee-jerk emotional response to threats when we have suppressed the development of our critical thinking faculties and spent our time immersed in emotional stupidity?
There certainly is a lack of thinking these days. Whenever I search for information on how to get rid of a problem, generally in Windows, 9 times out of 10 the results returned link to some stupid YouTube video. It will last 3 to 10 minutes, 90% of which will have zero bearing on the subject ("I was just, ya kno, thinking about <insert pointless thing> and, like, I realized that there are still people who don't know how . . .) or just be filler (um, uh, hmmm, ya kno ?). So I have to get through all that gunk to get to the 12 seconds that actually explain what I need to know (if they are there).
Instead of just making a web page, taking a minute to grab a few screenies and putting another minute of effort into TYPING A CLEAR EXPLANATION.
But hey, it's a lot faster to just grab the micro and start blabbering without a clue as to how you're going to explain or thinking it through first, right ? Well guess what ? It shows. And you're wasting my time.
So I avoid YouTube links like the plague, unless there really isn't anything else.
On that basis if I have understood your argument correctly
The Kardashians are brain death and should immediately be exterminated and expunged from history along with the rest of celebrity TV and perhaps even most of daytime TV.
Totally gets my vote; for years I have said it is brain killing claptrap.
But its popularity talks to the lack of imagination in Television and Red Top reading populous who need such pacifying crap to take the edge off the daily grind...
Grrrr makes me just want to hit the rest button
Gentlemen please allow me to jump aboard your fine bandwagon by adding my pet peeves to your list.
init
The use of the word "like" at every pause or end of a sentence - whilst the moron pauses to think or focuses on supplying oxygen to what remains of their brain.
the use of which and that
free instead of three
The poor state of journalism that results in so many articles being printed with spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. And this is after the printed press has been computerised with word processing and one would have imagined automated spell checking.
@Evil Graham
Maybe you're getting old, maybe not.
I'm not with the news though, bored by would be much more appropriate.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/bored-by-of-or-with
It's a common usage, although probably not for use in formal settings. I'm pretty sure that this isn't a formal setting though.
Ignoring 'landfill Android' mobes, I think part of the problem is the cost of top of the range models. When the market was new, people were prepared to pay £300 or £400 to get on the 'smartphone owning ladder'. Now world and dog already has one, £300 - £400 [or even more] just for an upgrade to something that basically does what you've already got –only a wee bit faster– is a bit harder to swallow.
This is especially so when [if rumours are to be believed] the cost to manufacture most of these phones is barely a fraction of the final asking price.
I'm still using my original iPhone 3GS. It makes phonecalls, sends text messages, tells me where I am, has a basic camera and browses the net –and still lasts me a whole day on a charge. I do cast covetous glances at my friends' newer shinier iOS and Android gadgets. However my covetousness is nowhere near strong enough, nor my occasional frustrations at the slowness of my 3GS nowhere near irksome enough, for me to feel the need to spend upwards of £300 for an upgrade.
Having a foot in both camps [iOS phone and Android tablet], neither am I overly impressed with either OS. iOS is slicker and better designed but the 'Apple Walled Garden' makes jailbreaking almost compulsory [with the attendant risks that involves]. Android is much more hacker-friendly, but is still far too rough around the edges for my liking. Recent revelations of gaping security & privacy holes in both OSes also make me reluctant to splash out lots of hard-earned cash for new toys, with most of these flaws still present.
Yes. All that's out there at the moment does seem over-priced and boring. The only development on the smartphone front which interests me these days is Ubuntu Mobile. I'm not overly bothered about the lack of apps for it so far [I mainly use my phone for SMS and some web browsing] but, given that on current form, my next mob will likely have to last me about 5 years [as my current one has done], I'd want to buy the fastest and best available at the time. So I'm waiting for a Ubuntu phone to be released which isn't built on 'last year's hardware'.
you say that you mainly use your phone for Calls, Texts and some web browsing yet you say before that you must jailbreak an IOS device.
Would you care to explain why this is? What does jailbreaking give you that the non jailbreaked phone does not given your fairly restricted usage?
"..Would you care to explain why this is? What does jailbreaking give you that the non jailbreaked phone does not given your fairly restricted usage?..."
A few things which, while quite minor in themselves, added together make jailbreaking essential for me:
* F.Lux
* The ability to SSH into my iPhone to add or remove stuff [I loathe iTunes with a passion]
* Adblocking apps
* Hide stupid iOs crap apps that I'll never use, like Nike+iPod, iBooks, etc.
* Set another browser as the default, other than Safari.
* Customise menubar display
...There are probably several more, but that's all I can think off, off the top of my head. basically it comes down to the old "It's my gadget that I paid for. I should be able to set it up how I want" argument.
I own a 2 year old former flagship Android mobile that has recently had an OTA update to v5.01.
This has been an improvement, and I'm very happy with my device. I suspect the battery will start to fail over the next couple of years, and when it does I'll buy a $25 battery to replace it.
When the OTA updates stop, (they may already have I suppose) I'll install Cyanogen mod or similar, and get the new features that way.
One thing I'm not going to do is shell out $500 or more for a new flagship mobile any time soon, unless I drop the one I have.
I suspect I'm pretty typical (apart from the Cyanogen mod bit, most users look at you sideways when you use that sort of language at them).
I think one of the main reasons has to be that a new smartphone doesn't really offer a lot over its predecessor. A smartphone a few years old is perfectly adequate/capable.
I probably will upgrade to an iPhone 6S this time around but I haven't felt the need to upgrade since my current iPhone 4S. (It really is a bit long in the tooth now though)
Another factor for me has been the iPad Mini which has taken over most of the "smart" duties of my phone. I rarely use my phone for anything but calls and messages. (Hmm maybe I won't bother to upgrade the phone after all.)
Boredom slowing the industry down...I think it is lack of innovation and an overly consumer focused approach.
Ive yet to see a mobile phone or tablet geared towards anyone other than a youtube viewer / contributor.
Id pay real money for a tablet that will allow me to do perform server maintenance, network testing and such like to a sufficiently in depth level without having to root anything or sideload something.
Simple stuff would be welcomed as well. How many of youbwould appreciate NFC tagged racks that you bonk your phone onto which then gives you a list of servers in that rack along with diagnostic info? As long as you are on the appropriate wifi network using appropriate certificates for authentication this should be simple.
I hate opening racks and fiddling with KVMs just for diagnostics.
Id build this myself but unfortunately supporting fuckwits occupies all of my time and I have no money to invest (well not enough).
Next big apple release will *still* sell like hot cakes - the problem is that THAT displaces a bunch of the current generation of phones, still more than good enough, down the chain to people who buy pre-owned, family and so forth, and a fair few even of the rabid apple fans are skipping one or two releases as what they have now is comfortable, familiar, and more than good enough.
People aren't bored with mobi - but there is a finite market of first buyers that is all but exhausted, and given the cost and the fact other complimentary technologies like wearables are attracting some of the upgrade spend, there is a risk that something else will gain the social prestige argument away from the latest iphone, leaving the market mostly for replacements due to failure (and that's not a large market, made smaller by sales of insurance contracts)
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