* Posts by Henry Blackman

66 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Sep 2007

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Philips kills dependence on its Hue hub, pointing to a Bluetooth world

Henry Blackman

Re: At least it's an improvement

HomeKit does not require an internet connection. Neither does the Hue app which connects locally.

Google Pay heads for the desktop... and, we fear, an inevitable flop

Henry Blackman

Amex

I use an Amex Gold Charge - for the points mainly, and to ensure I don't spend too much - but I have yet, outside of the odd independent retailer and B&Q, found somewhere that doesn't accept it. All hotels, petrol stations, chain restaurants, supermarkets, major retailers (Apple, Starbucks, Costa, Currys/PC World, Boots, John Lewis, etc) all take it fine. Occasionally contactless Amex doesn't work (with Apple Pay or card) with some old machines, but otherwise perfect. You can usually use Paypal (I know) for online retailers that don't take it directly to accept it, and even with companies that don't take cards with Billhop (although they charge 2.5%).

Henry Blackman

Re: Google and android

Google has to go to Apple, cap in hand, and pay them billions for access to their valuable customers - default search in Safari!

Henry Blackman

Re: Google's online markets monopolies

Or some nuts/coconut and have great, healthful milk that way :-)

Henry Blackman

Shell and BP

BP have also raised their limit, generally speaking - many/most petrol stations are franchises or otherwise independent businesses so take whatever the bank gives them. Shell however has their excellent app which allows you to pay without going to counter, and get your loyalty points all with Apple Pay (or Paypal - spit).

As US court bans smart meter blueprints from public, sysadmin tells of fight for security info

Henry Blackman

Re: Capable of encryption

Not in my experience. I get an email and push notification each month, and I either do or don't give them a reading. My partner and I live in a large house so their estimates are in line with industry standards and therefore higher than we actually use - so when after 8 months of not bothering to submit a reading I finally did. Within a day or two, they cancelled all the previous invoices, and reissued them all with my new usage profile. I was impressed.

No, Microsoft: Your one-billion Windows 10 goal is just sad ... really sad

Henry Blackman

Re: OS X

Let's take this apart statement by statement:

Mac iOS/x = What is this? After correct this turns into OS X and iOS.

Neither OS X or iOS are based on FreeBSD. They are based on a Mach microkernel with some FreeBSD user land. It is also not Linux.

Mac Desktop was NOT copied from Linux desktop. You understand that OS X 'desktop' was based on Finder - The Mac Experience, which predates Linux by 17 years. GNU Linux is in fact a clone of Unix itself.

Comparisons of a Mac to any 'Intel i3, i5, i7 pc laptops' do not find that the 'Pc laptops' are built to a higher specification at all. Quite the opposite in fact when comparing machines at the same price point. The 'Apple Tax' has long since been demonstrated to be FUD. Such a sweeping generalisation can be nothing but trolling, so I dare you to find a £300 'Pc laptop' which is built to a higher specification than any Mac to support your statement.

World wide class action law 'suite' - There is no such thing. Correcting this turns it into a 'law suit'. There *is* a number of class actions in the US over various things: iMessages being lost, iOS8 missing space, in-app purchases, retail workers and more. Some with more merit than others, but Apple has a large coffer of cash, so I mean why not. People need to be protected from this dreadful company right?

Strap on fitness finesse: Withings Activité Pop

Henry Blackman

Re: not for real geeks

Nike Fuelband has such an SDK.

Henry Blackman

A Flash is £20? Amazing, where from?

No one wants iOS 8 because it's for NERDS - dev

Henry Blackman

The real problem is OTA upgrades take 5GB of space temporarily on the devices. Many don't have that, partly because of the 'yellow bar' issue. Plug any iPhone/iPad into iTunes and it'll tell you GBs of space is being used by 'other'. Reset the device, restore from back up and presto GBs are back. I think Appleneeds to address this somehow.

On the other hand 50% of users have upgraded in a few days... What other platform enjoys such rapid take up?

Google's ANDROID CRUSHING smartphone rivals underfoot

Henry Blackman

No one believes IDC

No one believes IDC's figures. They are guesswork at best which are completely manipulated to ensure the integrity of the headline figures with the current narrative. It is quite impossible to know, with so many vendors globally, how many phones actually ship with each OS, except for Apple because they say so. Samsung, don't across the board - so how do they know? They don't.

What's in your toolbox? Why the browser wars are so last decade

Henry Blackman

Chrome is simply dreadful - awful UI, and is fundamentally a ongoing development project. Full of bugs that don't get fixed for a year or more (unable to scroll on large divs with overflow:scroll took nearly 18 months to get fixed), and now it isn't based on WebKit, it likely to cause another schism for developers to have to account for. Firefox is clunky, overweight and refuses to support standards like H264 because of their unholy war. IE at least works almost as well as Safari (a first class browser in every way, albeit not always out at the front but who cares when development must be done for all browsers anyway), and frankly them adding support for the -webkit prefixes is really just accepting that for years they were so behind, and developers have forgotten about them at all. Especially on mobile.

Apple badmouthing of court's monitor proves it NEEDS him - judge

Henry Blackman

In fairness to Apple, having to pay $1,100 an HOUR to someone who has no expertise in areas of monopolies, so then had to employ other lawyers that Apple ALSO has to pay, to then interview staff who have nothing to do with the iBooks-Publishers agreements seems a little rich. I mean, what on earth does Jony Ive have to do with negotiating contracts with Reuters?

The reason this lawyer has interviewed mostly lawyers is because, hell, that who does the contract negotiations.

I think the real reason he want to interview all these guys is because he is associated with Samsung's legal representation in the US. Fact!

Also, in fairness to Apple - the DOJ has single handledly given the entire ebooks market to Amazon. Well done them. The next thing we'll see is the decreasing spend on books and ebooks. Oh wait...

Official: Apple hooks up with WORLD'S LARGEST MOBILE OPERATOR

Henry Blackman

Re: 3G

The 5C and 5S are fully compatible with the China Mobile network.

Apple: How we slip YOUR data to govts – but, hey, we're not Google

Henry Blackman

Re: APPLE PRIVACY STATEMENT CANNOT BE RELIED UPON

So you used Dictation in the cloud, and chose not to use the offline version of it. You're then complaining that Apple has stored your voice, or are using it or selling it in some way. I suspect the Data Protection Officer has as much legal knowledge as you do - who cares you are a law graduate that doesn't mean anything with regard to your knowledge of the DPA. I'm not sure why you are complaining you haven't received a letter from legal services. Why does that matter?

If you are so deeply concerned why not refer your complaint to the Information Commissioner?

Having said that, you really don't have anything to do with your time other than complain do you! Don't adopt a common sense approach and discontinue use of Dictation. No, that would be silly wouldn't it.

Henry Blackman

Re: 'We do not store location data'

You need help.

Billionaire dumps Apple stock because Steve Jobs was 'really awful' guy

Henry Blackman

Re: We're already seeing the change

The top nerd is of course Sir Jonathan Ive. He's very much at the helm of Apple now, and Tim cook recognises the importance of that steering. Scott Forstall the antipathy of Apple is gone.

TWO can play this 64-bit mobile game, says Samsung, crossly

Henry Blackman

Re: Forget 64 bits, and fix the 1 bit that's broken - the battery

They did provide improved battery life, which is quite amazing given the additional performance the A7 delivers.

Having said that, if you want battery life of over 2 days, then your expectations need to be managed. Not going to happen until battery technology improves significantly, or the weight of your phone doubles.

Henry Blackman

Re: WOW

All you've done is demonstrate your lack of understanding of what this CPU means with regard to the improvement over the previous generation, or for Samsung et al, the current generation.

Henry Blackman

My masters degree begs to differ. In addition it's "users" not "user's", but of course you knew that didn't you?

Henry Blackman

Re: Why oh why

Except that 64 bit'ness isn't actually the point here. The fact that there is a hugely expanded instruction set that boosts performance and power usage is what's important.

Apple’s iOS 64-bit iUpgrade: Don't expect a 2x performance leap

Henry Blackman

Re: 64bit and 32bit frameworks?

Actually it doesn't. Plugins run in a desperate process so can be 32 bit or 64 and load regardless of the app bring 64 bit or not.

Microsoft fattens Exchange Online mailboxes to 50GB

Henry Blackman

It's also available with ActiveSync for iPhones etc, Exchange Web Services to Outlook, Apple Mail etc, with the OWA app for iPhone, and Android, optimised HTML5 site, and regular desktop site. I'm sure your client won't suffer at all.

Apple's iTunes Radio to launch next month with abundant ads

Henry Blackman

Re: Great, (Cr)apple launch the iDon't-Want-it-service

You're funny, but clearly don't get out much.

My advice? Jump up and down screaming 'I hate Apple, I hate Apple'. Be as dramatic as possible based on no facts.

Like I said, funny guy.

Microsoft pledges Linux boost for Windows Server and Center R2 duo

Henry Blackman

Re: Microsoft FAIL

My organisation does it. We use Windows almost exclusively, virtualise everything, and run the odd Red Hat install when the application (or supplier) demands it. Otherwise it's Windows all the way.

I used to be a FreeBSD dude, but slowly came to the conclusion you can't find Windows forever, when all the business systems integrate ONLY with AD, and when we did move over, I haven't looked back once.

Chromebooks now the fastest-growing segment of PC market

Henry Blackman

For $300 or British equivalent, you buy a tablet. Better features, better form factor.

Apple: iOS7 dayglo Barbie makeover is UNFINISHED - report

Henry Blackman

Re: Skins?

So the introduction concept of the interface being reactive to a user's choice of background image was lost on you.

iOS is about getting things done, not wasting time playing with it.

What's NFC? PayPal lobs Chip and PIN readers at UK small biz

Henry Blackman

iZettle supports Chip and Signature - so Visa, quite rightly doesn't support it.

No one supports NFC, because it's not worth it. Not all cards have it, so why reject cards which haven't been replaced yet, or the bank isn't bothering yet. Maximum transaction value is £20 usually, so that eliminates that. All in all Chip and Pin is the best solution!

Google+ exec declares Facebook 'social network of the past'

Henry Blackman

Google+ is like one of those Chinese cities that are built, but have no residents, no business or commerce and are overgrown with weeds, but have great adverts (no pun intended) to draw people there, promising the utopia of the future. All along knowing when you do move in, if you do, it's a holiday home at best, and you're tracked and your data sold at every opportunity.

UK iPad Mini FRENZY: Queues stretch SEVERAL FEET from till

Henry Blackman

Re: Apple: "You MUST have Retinal display!"

Tether the iPad to an iPhone and the iPad uses the iPhone GPS. Clever.

Euro bigwig turns heat on 'unacceptable' Apple warranties

Henry Blackman

Correction

The article states that in the US Apple used to provide 90 day warranties. This is not true.

Apple provides 1 year warranties, and 90 days phone support. They always have.

In the UK on their computers, if you buy through their education store, you get 3 years warranty at no extra charge, but not phone support. Same if you buy it through John Lewis.

Why is the iPhone so successful? 'Cause people love 'em

Henry Blackman

What a silly thing to write. If you actually understand simple English, you'll know that people who buy iPhones are happy with them. People who buy Samsung phones (etc), not so much. The implication is that whatever phone you have, and it's clearly not an iPhone, you are less happy with it than I am with mine. That must really comfort you.

Apple misses earnings targets, Street reacts

Henry Blackman

No 'slide'

There is no 'slide' in sales. They are up on the year-ago quarter. So they are up, not down.

What's clear here is:

1. The Register has no idea on financial reporting

2. The 'analysts' that cover Apple have absolutely no clue and should, apart from that one guy that got it almost right, be fired immediately.

Did anyone notice that Apple beat THEIR OWN projections?

Nike+ Fuelband activity monitor review

Henry Blackman

Re: Not waterproof?

It's water resistant - AKA you can shower with it, but you can't swim with it.

Henry Blackman
FAIL

Re: Broke immediately, support ignored me for weeks.

You could, of course, have simply called them. They have european phone support who would have arranged a replacement over the phone. Simple really.

Apple iPhone turns five this Friday

Henry Blackman

Re: What's most amazing

It's changed quite a bit, and iOS 6 updates it again. Granted some of it is just better graphics, and updated UI, but why change something that works as perfectly and as well as it did 5 years ago?

Apple got this so right, they don't need to change many things. They may not lead on specs all of the time, but they do lead with the things that matter, like that retina display, battery life, ease of use.

Apple's iPhone 5 connector said to be a control freak

Henry Blackman

Re: Not the first time

Your iPad will charge from your internal USB port, but only when it switched off and very slowly. Its actually because your PC doesn't meet the USB specifications requirements.

iPhones, iPads to be FULL OF FACEBOOK and NOT GOOGLE

Henry Blackman

Re: Fragmentation

Or actually supporting old devices.

Henry Blackman

Re: iTards

Why not let 'cheap' phones run the latest and greatest. The 3GS will run IOS6 according to Apple. How on earth can you justify cheap Android phones are better because they run older software is beyond anyone with any common sense. The 3GS is free remember.

Henry Blackman

Re: Maps- Great if you're in the US?

As they are using TomTom for global mapping, why wouldn't it work in the UK?

They've never said Siri will work in the UK for location based services. So no problem there.

Henry Blackman

Re: I suggest...

Sadly IOS6 won't be working with the original iPad, and only 4th gen iPod Touch. However it will support all the way back to 3GS according to http://www.apple.com/ios/ios6/

SHOCK: RIM PlayBook outsells Apple iPad

Henry Blackman

Re: US Government Agencies Ignore Security Threats...

Where does email go before it arrives on your BB? Canada. Whilst surely not a big worry in terms on global threats, the fact it is in someone else's hands at all worries me. Single point of failure beyond my control.., no thanks.

Henry Blackman

Re: Why are they dumping Blackberries for Iphones?

Cost saving alone from the removal of BES must be worth it. ActiveSync works perfectly and is included in Exchange CALs.

Cupertino to ban permissionless address book copying

Henry Blackman

I wonder...

I wonder how many Windows Phone, Android, Blackberry etc apps have routinely done this for years too?

Apple have done the right thing. They couldn't have acted much more quickly could they!

Stolen, remote-wiped iPhones still get owner's iMessages

Henry Blackman

@Mosquito iMessage is indeed turned off by default. This is a bit daft, but no doubt will be addressed in a future update. Hardly anything to worry about.

If an iMessage cannot be delivered it usually is then sent by SMS or the sender is given a choice.

iOS upgrade swells iPhone battery-suckage grief

Henry Blackman

How someone can, less than 24 hours later, that the battery life is 'worst' means that that they have, in fact, not tested the fix. I didn't have a big issue with my 4S battery life, however I have noticed that it is improved after a day of use as I have at least twice the remaining as I have in the past.

iPhone 5 a no-show at Apple's 'Let's talk iPhone' event

Henry Blackman

Did you even see the announcement?

The antennae is not the same - it's actually now two for mobile comm - and the iPhone 4S will automatically switch between the two depending on which gives better reception. Not that the iPhone 4 had an issue that was worse than any other phone!

Apple worth more than Microsoft and Intel combined

Henry Blackman
Thumb Up

You hit the nail on the head.

You hit the nail on the head. Apple's products are cleverly designed. They feel different because someone has put the effort to actual care about how people use these things.

They may be controlling, they may be borderline communist in their ideals, but they certainly design the frustration out of the software and hardware, and design in beauty. No one can deny their products are beautiful, and are, solely responsible for the current designs of Windows, Android, KDE, etc, etc, etc.

iPhones go on gobbling mobile sales

Henry Blackman

Clueless maths

A 1439% increase isn't descriptive of the reality of the situation, given that Android platform phones sold poorly the previous quarter, any large number is meaningless.

I'm sure Apple are very happy their performance; more people have bought their phones than last quarter. They have in fact, increased market share, jumped ahead of a rival and struggled to keep up with demand. Manufacturers making Android phones, with the exception of HTC, are yet to make a profit, and most of them are being sued by all the other major players.

Windows Phone 7 has launched, with little fan fair, and certainly no queues for phones. From what I've seen, I'm impressed, but in the market, MS haven't exactly won the war so far with phones. They have never been the market leader, and it doesn't appear they will be for any length of time yet. I'm sure their new platform will do OK, but perhaps it's also doomed to the same result as MS have had with Zune. Hardly the success of the decade.

Apple Ping unfriends meanie Facebook

Henry Blackman

It is a web version

Don't you know? The iTunes Store is in fact a web site - this changed a couple of years ago when Apple switched to using WebKit for rendering.

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