Posts by Mark .

This is US only, not at all representative of worldwide (also means that Apple aren't #1)

This is US only, whilst WP8 still grows overall. That's why the figures don't match up, either with the Nokia adverts, or what MS have said (as reported in the article). The only lie is the Register spinning US-only facts as if it was representative of the worldwide market.

Similarly with Android vs IOS or Samsung vs Apple. Worldwide, Samsung are first (and Nokia second), way ahead of Apple. And in the US, last quarter IOS went up with Android falling, but that was only in the US - worldwide Android continues to dominate.

I don't care for WP, but I dislike articles trying to mislead people just to push an agenda - it seems that not one single other commenter noticed that these figures are for the US only.

The only valid point worth reporting is that Nokia still haven't broken into the US market, despite them hoping to with WP. But that isn't a fall - Symbian never made it in the US either. In general, the US has never been representative of worldwide usage. I mean, in 2007 they thought Apple's dumb phone was something amazingly new because the US was years behind in phone tech, whilst everyone else had had apps and Internet years before even on feature phones, not to mention the US not having seen smartphones before. And whilst Android has caught on since then, it's still not dominating in the way that it has outside the US.

Re: Did I miss the big Microsoft advertising blitz?

I don't about MS, but practically *every single US show* (at least, those that also air over here) in the last five or more years has Apple product placement in it. The only exceptions being those where it doesn't make sense (e.g., sci-fi, fantasy, historical). (Thankfully those are my favourite genres...)

Re: Laptops with no OS.

PC Specialist sell Clevos with option of no OS.

True, that's probably not a "big name manufacturer", but then I think the answer there is that big names care more about what sells the most, and most people want to buy with an OS. But if you want a no-OS machine, vote with your wallet :)

Re: bestseller

It's an odd world. A year or two ago, everyone said "Why bother with a Chromebook, you can get a Windows/Linux netbook that does all the Google webstuff, and more". Now it's "Oh wait, no one sells netbooks, but you can get a Chromebook".

(Actually though, you can still get low end cheap laptops - not as portable, but neither is this 14" Chromebook; and more powerful than netbooks. I'm not sure there are any Chromebooks as small as the 10" netbooks? Plus it helps that the latest generation of Chromebooks are significantly cheaper, putting them at the lowest end of laptop costs.)

Aside from being untrue (Samsung outsell Apple even at only the high end; plus many Apple sales are made up of cheap products, like the older phones still on sale, not to mention other areas like mp3 players), I find this argument odd anyway. The cost of a phone is just as much a part of the product - any old fool can produce something if cost is no object, but delivering it at a cost that people buy is what takes the skill.

I mean, you might as well say "Most people would buy Apple, but buy Samsung as they make better phones". It's absurd to handwave away the latter part as an excuse, and spin it as Apple being better. Rather, the fact that Samsung deliver to customers here means it's they that have done better. The fact that a hypothetical Apple might do better in a hypothetical world where the phones were better or they weren't so expensive is neither here nor there.

Re: Strangely relevant

On a similar note, *Linux* on Android would be good too - as in, running anything that works on GNU/Linux.

Porting Windows to Linux often isn't that hard with languages like C or C++, and libraries like SDL, but like you say, I've hit problems trying to port to Android. My route has been to use Qt (the Android port is unofficial and in beta, but still seems a lot more supported and user friendly than SDL on Android), but it would be so much easier just to recompile a Linux version...

Re: Round and round....

I agree - I'd add that another useful thing about resistive screens (which weren't actually that bad really - my resistive Nokia 5800 was fine with finger, and I think the difference between "no touch screen" and "touch screen" is far bigger than resistive vs capacitive, especially when you consider the former had some advantages of their own) was being able to use with gloves. I was interested to note Nokia advertising the Lumia 920 as having a capacitive screen that's sensitive enough to work with gloves, so I hope we'll get this feature back too.

It's annoying that the myth of styluses being bad still hangs over us, and Samsung should be congratulated for taking the steps to challenge this. I hope we'll see their S Pen in more mainstream smaller devices like their Galaxy S series.

Re: Ahhh, I mourn the NetBooks passing

But that doesn't fulfil: "Intel still doesn't grok that "all-day battery life" means a minimum of eight functional hours, realistically 12."

Which applies to the Apple Air just as much as any other Intel Core device.

But this is the question - how do Intel Core and Intel Atom compare on battery life? I went for an Atom netbook rather than Intel Core ultra-portable not just for cost, but also I was worried about the battery life not being as good, but since then, I've seen some claims that Intel Core has become a lot better. Part of the problem is that you can't really compare manufacturer estimates, as some quote "best possible maximum, with minimum brightness, sitting idle", whilst others quote say, how long it can play a movie for. Anyone seen any benchmarks that fairly compare the two kinds of processor?

If Intel Core is almost as good these days, then all the Ultrabooks and other Intel Core ultra-portables are possible options as netbook replacements, albeit not as cheap.

Re: I want a new netbook

"since it had windows installed, it could only run more than a couple of hours by crippling performance"

If think it's more the netbook than the OS to blame. My Windows Samsung netbook easily gets about 8 hours of use.

Re: I want a new netbook

I think that's the thing though - if you're okay with ARM, there are plenty of options that are much closer to being netbook replacements (in terms of size, battery life), whether it's a Chromebook, ASUS Transformer, or even the various Windows RT hybrids appearing. But even with Chromebooks, the x86 versions seem to be Intel Core or Celeron, putting them more in line with more conventional 11" laptops (or "ultrabooks") than netbook replacements.

(Oddly, I'm sure the earlier generations of Chromebooks did use Atom, but they were more expensive than netbooks, and more like 12" IIRC.)

Re: I want a new netbook

Comparing the ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity to the upcoming ASUS x86 hybrids, just frustrates me.

The Transformer Infinity is 10.1", and even has better-than-full-HD 1920x1200, but I'd rather have x86 - like you, I want to run something more than just Android. But their upcoming x86 options seem to include:

Transformer Book - 13.3" (and it's i7, which whilst powerful, may not be as good as a netbook on battery life, though putting extra battery in the keyboard dock may offset this - but at that size, not to mention the likely cost, it's not really a netbook replacement).

Zenbook - Another 13.3" i7 machine.

Vivobook - Has an 11.6" option, 1366x768, not sure what the battery life would be like.

VivoTab - Perhaps the closest option, with 11.6", Atom, and a whopping 19 hours battery life with the keyboard dock. 1366x768.

So I think the VivoTab is a possible netbook replacement, but I'm left wondering, if they can produce a 10" machine with 1920x1200, why is their x86 11" offering stuck at 1366x768? As you say, it's this bizarre idea that people want to run mobile phone/tablet on-app-at-a-time OSs at super high resolutions, and desktop windowed operating systems at lower resolutions. Maybe it's because they think people are more likely to watch movies with an Android device, but then, it's also odd that the x86 Windows machine gets 16:9 ratio, with the ARM machine getting the more productivity friendly 16:10.

Atom still lives on

Another Me too!

Actually, it's worth noting that Atom still lives on, in the form of Clover Trail. It's just that it's not clear whether there will be basic Atom-based laptops, all the devices I've seen so far are hybrids (which isn't necessarily a bad thing - they're still ultra-portable, and have keyboards - but it's also more costly if you don't have any interest in that). Another annoyance is that 11" now seems to be a minimum for any device with a keyboard. E.g., something like http://www.asus.com/vivo/en/vivoTab.htm - with its whopping 19 hour battery life(!) - looks like it would serve well as a netbook-successor, but it does mean 11" minimum (and the extra cost is unfortunately to people who just want a basic laptop).

It hasn't helped the way that the media (and many geeks) slagged off Atom and netbooks as being "slow", when they're still good enough for many tasks, and as good as ARM. Like ARM, they may not be anywhere as near as fast as Intel Core processors, but have the better battery life (and lower cost).

Also "netbook" seemed to get stuck as "1024x600 with 1GB RAM" (despite the fact that they can all be upgraded cheaply to 2GB, which really helps with Windows 7). I'm more than happy to see that spec die. On the one hand, I'm glad to see a wide range of choice of Atom based machines with better specs now finally appearing; on the other hand, it seems odd if absolutely no one decides to make a pure Atom based laptop rather than a hybrid; or 10" rather than 11" minimum.

Re: Microsoft using Git!

Yet mention "Desperately trying to destroy the most successful Open Source product with software patents" Apple, and half the commenters on here will be praising how wonderful Apple are...

Re: Why the obsession with market share

Regarding share, yes. Everyone was obsessed when Nokia was losing market share, despite increasing sales, too. And this goes for everyone - Samsung, ASUS, even MS, are all making money from extra sales, who cares what the share is. Indeed, the doom and gloom about PCs is stupid, when tablets are being made by PC companies anyway, so it's not like they're losing out.

"Of course it has a capacitive touch screen so you'd better get out that stylus!"

Eh? A capacitive screen usually can't be used with a stylus. And neither resistive nor capacitive screens require a stylus. And I'm not sure a £50 tablet is useless - sure, some have low spec like 512MB RAM, but so did an original ipad.

Re: @messele

Interestingly enough, this was the same situation that Nokia went through for years - falling share, but still number one, and actually increasing sales. In some cases, their sales were increasing faster than other platforms in absolute numbers.

Of course, the media focused on "falling market share" all the years it was Nokia, but you can bet they'll focus on "increasing sales" when it's Apple...

Re: Pyrrhic victory for Apple

Agree, though even the "dead" Nokia outsell Apple.

Re: Google Doing Good Things

I remember how my secondary school had a strict policy that coats we wore should not have any logos on them - but the corridors were lined with paintings that had been "donated" by Sainsbury, with clearly visible logos on them...

(Not that I think this is relevant here, and to be honest if we were worried about companies getting unfair advantages, I'd be far more concerned about the money being spent on vast numbers of ipads. Google here are instead giving the money away to a 3rd party low cost product; as opposed to student or tax money going to Apple *and* giving them a free advert.)

Re: You all keep forgetting.

But people are responding to the bit: "Apple marketing veep Phil Schiller suggested iPad owners could use the extra space on their tablets to store all their work and media without needing "their old PCs”"

The points people have made are talking about work and media, not cobbling together your own OS, or multi-booting.

"Again, for seven out of ten of the home users I have to support, an iPad is all the "computer" they need, and pretty much all they can understand."

It's a myth that ipads, or tablets in general, are easier. Yes, you don't have to learn the touchpad, but the UIs are no easier, plus you have the complexity of multitouch and gestures. Most the people buying tablets seem to be computer-savvy people who already have computers, not computer inexperienced elderly who if anything are put off buy touchscreens, and prefer physical buttons to press, in my experience. And an ipad is just an overpriced Nexus anyway.

Re: iCloud??

It amuses me that all these Apple ipod/iphone/ipad users have to connect to a PC to run itunes to manage their data.

Re: Otherwise the specs for the 9.7-inch tablet and its Retina screen remain the same

Quite a few now we have the x86 tablets, and some have even more than that too. (Although admittedly, they also cost more than the low end tablets.)

Re: Re-ThornH - @G R Goslin

Great, so you can run software from 5-10 years ago.

Believe it or not, CAD software doesn't just use that extra CPU power and RAM for "bloat" - it hasn't stood still for 10 years. Yes sure, you could use an overpriced underpowered ipad to run CAD software that was cutting edge in 2002, or you could use a real computer and have the latest technology and functionality.

(And if you really want a tablet that's high end and can do what a real PC can do, they're the ones with x86 inside.)

Re: @o5ky

But if that's the case, it means that Apple is irrelevant to the story. It's rather sloppy reporting for the media to go on about Apple users, when it affects a far larger number of IE users (and possibly others - wonder if it affects Chrome!), and the issue was noticed on IE almost a year ago.

Re: Silly of MSFT to try and turn a profit on the WinPho OS.

I wouldn't refer to Ovi, as that came afterwards (though I don't know why you snigger, I've found that site fine as a user and developer).

Yes they were the first OS vendor to have a central software repository on mobile (it wasn't the first central repository; nor was it the first software or media download site for mobiles). I just wasn't sure how that relates to the idea of being able to charge a profit or not. If the aim is to expand market share as large as possible for the aim of controlling the software/media, then at 15%, that argument applies to Apple too. So whilst I do see some argument that MS should go for market share, perhaps they're just happy making higher profit margins instead, which actually is rather similar to Apple, in contrast with Google.

Re: Silly of MSFT to try and turn a profit on the WinPho OS.

Apple first to market? What?

Most "desktops" are mobile

All these kinds of predictions are meaningless anyway, when the terms are so ill-defined anyway. I mean, "mobile" includes a 10" or more huge tablet, whilst using a 7" netbook is "desktop". For several years, laptops have outsold actual desktops, so people saying desktops will decline is obvious, but including laptops as "desktops" makes no sense. Especially as the trend now seems to be that "mobile" tablets are more likely to be used on a flat surface (since the stand/top-heavy form doesn't work so well on a lap).