Posts by dotdavid

Android Police

Shame they're not the real cops, eh?

Battery

I'd be interested to see where the battery is kept. The weight and size issues would seem to be tricky to solve unless they have a battery life of an hour, or whatever.

Lies and damned statistics?

This 1 million figure is from a government that claims that when their last leader was born a new star appeared in the sky, right?

A bit like

""At no stage did any EU regulator suggest that any sort of pause would be appropriate. Since we finished these extensive briefings, we have notified over 350 million Google account holders, as well as providing highly visible notices to all our non-authenticated users."

Which is a bit like politely saying: "Tough luck, we're going ahead with this.""

Actually it's a bit like saying "FFS, we told you this YEARS ago and NOW you have a problem with it?"

I don't think Google are used to the, er, speed at which governments move.

Excellent scheme

Want to add to government coffers? Just legislate that rich internet companies have to do something impossible! Then when they can't do it, you can fine them every year or so - guaranteed income!

Bonus points for making the impossible thing something socially beneficial if solved - the internet companies employ lots of clever people, you never know but they might just crack perpetual motion, cold fusion or a cure for cancer.

So...

...how do you like dem apples, Apple? ;-)

Sorry, I couldn't help myself, but at least it's no sillier than these stupid patent battles.

MySpace

I just can't help but think of MySpace whenever I think of Facebook.

Hmmm

I think this is a bit rubbish of Moto, considering that they previously promised to release a bootloader unlocker for *all* of their recent smartphones (with the caveat that unlocking would possibly invalidate your warranty). Now they want people to buy whole new handsets to do this? Er... no I think we'll all pass, thanks.

All this has done is made me certain I'll never buy a Motorola handset.

It's all about the apps

I had a look at one of the Nokia Windows demos, and was impressed with the speed of the handset (although Androids of a similar price perform similarly well). I thought the tiles thing was a UI I could get used to. I also like the idea of getting timely OS updates without idiotic manufacturers and operators getting in the way.

But then I thought "what about all the apps I've bought?". I suspect a lot of Apple/Android users think the same way. I also like the customisable nature of Android and the Nokia seemed pretty one-size-fits-all.

I'm ambivilent towards Nokia, having never really tried Symbian after getting frustrated with their dumbphone software and moving to Windows Mobile. I disliked Microsofts attitude towards the WinMo community though, basically ignoring them, creating half-assed Windows Mobile updates and then dumping them by moving to a locked down Windows Phone 7. So I (and loads of others) moved to Android and have been reasonably happy ever since.

So who is the target market? The cheap handsets are mainly Androids. The desirable ones are mainly top-end Androids and iPhones. The ex-WinMo enthusiasts tend to get Androids. The ex-Nokia enthusiasts hate Nokia's guts now. Who are they pitching at?

I'd like there to be three strong players in the smartphone market but I can't see Nokia/WinMo being the third.

Android

Worth also noting it is on Android too.

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.dsd164.snake97

Although it's free (with ads).

Oh and "Rameses Niblick the Third (KKWWMT)" - Snake 97 is made by an indie dev not Microsoft.

War criminal?

Don't you need to be having a war to be dubbed a war criminal? Is North Korea having a war on phones, or is it just having one on reality?

Hmmm

"the player isn’t DLNA compliant and can’t stream content across a network ... The good news is that it still offers full access to the Sony Entertainment Network IPTV portal."

So what you're saying is that the software (probably the same base build as other Sony devices) has been crippled so other devices can be sold at a higher price point?

God I hate it when manufacturers do that.

That said, it looks a nice bit of kit otherwise.

Stalinist? Really?

""We want to be Stalinist about open standards," he said"

I don't think Stalinism means what you think it means.

Missed opportunities

Whenever I think of Nintendo, I think missed opportunities. Take the Wii for example; phenomenonally successful, but so many missed opportunities.

- It has a DVD drive but doesn't play DVDs. Why don't Nintendo release a downloadable "DVD Channel" to enable the functionality? Hell, homebrewers managed it. You could even charge for it.

- For that matter, it's a wifi enabled box. Sell a Media Centre channel. I know it only handles 420p maximum but the current lowish price of the console would make it very cool for second TVs and kids/grandparents.

- Wii Fit was a massive craze. "Maybe for the next version we could allow people to connect up their wii fit accounts and get some kind of competition going? Nah, we'll just add a few more exercises and call it Wii Fit Plus"

I think that Nintendo make very good software but are at best lucky with their hardware choices. It will be interesting to see what ideas they come up with regarding the next Wii, and what they do to ruin the whole thing.

Pubic alerts

"wrote Google pubic alerts engineer Steve Hakusa in a blog post"

I just *knew* this typo would be in the article ;-)

Wall St Analysts

We shouldn't encourage them. Now Apple has beaten their estimates, the sum total of their analysis next year will be "Apple will earn EVEN MOAR NEXT YEAR!" which may or may not be true.

As for those saying this is some kind of blow to, er, "fandroids" - I can't imagine why. Just because Apple sold a tonne of phones didn't mean Samsung, HTC, Motorola et al didn't too. There's a lot of room in this (blatantly still) growing market.

Text spam

Fortunately, I haven't been a victim but I think way too many companies seem to use the medium to be "in touch" with their customers.

T-Mobile used to text me every month to say my direct debit was due to come out in the next few days, and how much was due. That was marginally useful in that I could tell whether they were overcharging me or not and keep an eye on my usage. However someone must have complained about getting the bottom line sent to them in a text message anyone could read, so they stopped including the bill amount - turning the marginally useful service into a pretty useless one. After all, I know the direct debit is due - it happens every month, and isn't much of a surprise.

But can I work out how to unsubscribe from these helpful messages? No. And I don't even have a Nokia.

"Sure, there’s the underrated but pricey HTC Flyer with its curious stylus, but that’s still only boasting the earlier version of Android intended for phones"

Actually, the Flyer has an official Honeycomb update now. Granted, some don't much like it, but it's there. There are also vague rumours that it will get Ice Cream Sandwich. I doubt this Orange-branded thing will get any updates; why should Orange break the habit of a lifetime and update one of their devices?

And as others have said, TCO is a stupid amount considering how many competing options there are likely to be released this year now ICS is open-source and the cheaper manufacturers have their hands on it.

Promote the feature?

No, telly makers need to make sure their TVs support more IPTV services.To be fair there's a distinct lack of IPTV services so their offerings may still not be compelling, but punters aren't going to be sympathetic if their TV doesn't play iPlayer/ITV Player/Whatever when it's billed as a "smart" (haha) telly.

At the moment as El Reg's articles have shown it's a confusing mess of manufacturers doing their own thing and making their own deals on a service-by-service basis. Even techies find IPTV daunting, I hate to think what Joe Average thinks of it all.

Probably "I bought a large flat panel HDTV two years ago and it still works fine".

Horrible

So... you're saying they've invented the freezeray?

Screenshot

As others have said, some versions of HTC Sense (and presumably other OEMs' interfaces) let you take screenshots. Also the functionality is built into Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), the latest release, although admittedly this is a bit of an academic point considering only one or two handsets currently run it.

But...

...when you were out and about with it did anyone mistake it for the leader of the Autobots?

Sincerely,

Hasbro Inc.

(IT angle because is it IT or an alien lifeform?)

Flabbergasted

"Apple's decision to launch a tweaked iPhone 4 - the 4S - rather than a brand new iPhone 5 may have flabbergasted some pundits, but punters have taken to the phone"

Face it, the punters don't care what "the latest iPhone" is called - they just want to buy "the latest iPhone". A lot of them will have been holding off buying until "the latest iPhone" came out, in this case the 4S. I doubt they even looked at the specs.

As long as Apple remains trendy that will always be the case.

Guess what, UK film industry...

...these silly laws won't effect your sales one jot.

Where's the Paris angle, because having her in one or two of your films might increase sales in certain markets.

Desk job

"Brits' screen-break aversion doesn't bode well for desk job future"

What, your employer doesn't make you do that?

*Angry glare at boss*

Valve

I thought Valve had decided to move wholesale into game publishing via Steam rather than dirty their hands with coding nowadays. Even things like Portal were made by teams purchased by the company, from what I understand?

Where's the IT (department of Valve)?

Patent

Someone should patent "the use of English words in a description of a product or service, in order to increase usability for English-speaking users".

Then it wouldn't just be "design language" (a strategy boutique phrase if I've ever heard one) they could sue people about.

Spawn of satan == patent trolls.

Skype

Skype has been on Android for a while now, but apart from playing around with it for an hour or so I don't run it anymore - mainly as it drained the battery too much when I last tried it.

Since a lot of people (in the UK at least) get all those free minutes and don't have too many international friends to call, I can't see Skype being a major competitor to the telcos yet. Unless maybe they start selling smartphones like telcos do - i.e. subsidised and with Skype handling the telephony stuff instead of the carrier. But even then they'll have to fix the battery usage.

Can't wait until these have Linux distros to install. I'm not a hardware hacker, but would love a media streamer running Myth or whatever to play with.

Expensive

"but then said 'ooh ah, that's expensive',"

A bit like how many of their customers behave when confronted with the price of a Windows upgrade.

Hardly surprising...

Ofcom is more of a "watch puppy" than watchdog. The most it ever would have done to Orange was lick them to death.

As others have said; vote with your feet, although I suspect if you make enough of a fuss Orange will let you go earlier sans penalty.

Are you sure...