Posts by uhuznaa

Sony confesses: we can't beat iPhone... yet

"Not many tablets"...

One tablet would be enough if it's good.

ViewSonic VSD220 22in Android mega tablet

Google is stupid

Something like this seems to have much more potential than the stupid ChromeBooks Google is trying to force down our throats. Even as just a cheap, simple PC or thin client in the office. Especially with MS Office coming for Android in a few months.

Add four full-sized SD card slots (so you can add up to 256 GB of flash for media storage), a better stand so you can tilt it between 90 and 0 degrees and you have a great home media system that also works as a simple home PC with or without keyboard and mouse. HP and Dell should be all over this instead of starving while trying to just sell the same old PCs. But they're stupid as well.

Plastic screen outfit teams with Epson to offer screen on your plastic

Re: Supermarket shelves

"I thought it was a bit of an overengineered solution but they must have found some benefit to warrant rolling it out."

The "nice" thing about these is that you can adjust your prices on the fly then, basically liquid supply&demand optimization. Some people are thinking this is a great idea.

Apple screen maker preps 'retina' iPad Mini panel, pants reporter

Of course

There will be a retina iPad mini next year. It will be heavier, thicker (because of all the backlight and GPU power draw to drive and illuminate all those pixels and the battery to feed it) and more expensive (because of the more powerful GPU and higher integrated innards and display to keep the size and weight of the thing in check) and the current Mini will drop $50 or so in price. That's the usual way to do it. And totally reasonable, I would say.

By the way, the iPad Mini still has a higher pixel density than the MS Surface. The display is far from perfect, but it's not bad either. In fact it's the first iPad I could like enough to actually buy it. I handled one a few days ago and liked it surprisingly much, it feels almost more like an ebook reader than a tablet. And 163 PPI is *much* better than the screen I'm right now looking at anyway. Doesn't really hurt either.

Apple iPad Mini 8in tablet review

Re: Apple products are often arguably cheaper than their competition...

Currently even a first-gen iPad sells for about $200. With all of 1024x758 pixels on 10" and 256MB of RAM.

This thing is not bad

I have a Nexus 7 and tried an iPad Mini the other day. I found that I liked the iPad much better than the Nexus with the exception of the pixel density and the price. As an appliance the iPad is better, as a cheap touchscreen-computer the Nexus is better (and cheaper). So depending on what you actually expect from a tablet it's perfectly reasonable to like one or the other better. No need to rant, really.

Acer Iconia A110 8GB Android tablet review

Speaker

The quiet (and backwards pointing) speaker on the Nexus 7 is really poor. Using it as a video phone with Skype is hard even in a very quiet room.

Still, at least you'll get Android updates.

Asus pledges Android 4.2 update for Google Nexus 7

Re: Repeating Windows mistakes of decades past...

Google probably just won't care for removable SD cards since no Nexus device has them.

Looking forward to that

Although I'm really curious if they just add a load of features or finally fix some very annoying bugs that very nearly caused me to trash my Nexus 7 into very little pieces more than once. Like the numerous editing bugs in text fields in Chrome.

Would also be nice if Android would finally support other layouts than just US English on external keyboards (USB or BT).

iPad Mini's quite a handful

When you're not paid for tinkering with such things a pure appliance like the iPad just makes more sense than anything else.

I will never get this kind of "this device, which is well designed and has great software, has no place anywhere because I hate Apple".

(Typed on a Nexus 7 that AGAIN deleted characters several lines above the cursor when trying to edit the last sentence. If Google won't have fixed all these editing bugs in 4.2 I'll just go and buy an iPad after all).

Microsoft reveals Windows Phone 8 support for Mac

Re: Really? *Can* you use USB mass storage in WP8?

Since iOS 5 iTunes is purely optional.

Ebooks: Just use Dropbox, if both devices are on the same network it syncs locally. You also can fill iBook via FTP or email attachments. Other readers usually support their own ways of slurping up epubs.

I have both an iPhone and an Android tablet and automatic or rule-driven sync of photos and music is a huge advantage compared to manually dragging files around. The only advantage of doing it the old-fashioned way is when you want to initially dump lots of things onto the device, but after that all that file-dragging becomes very boring and tedious very fast. And of course if you want to be able to dump loads of music and ebooks from your mate's computer onto your phone.

Anyway, if Google would bother to come with a similar software to manage your phone or tablet including backups and restoring I would very much like that.

Asus: we ship a million Google's Nexus 7s monthly

Isn't it ironic?

The Register for a change has an article here that is not straight about an Apple product or Apple as a company and still the comments are -- all about Apple.

Positive or negative, I'm about to end my subscription to the feed since there's much too much Apple going on here. People seem to be obsessed with Apple. Nowadays I can tolerate the most silly, naive and glowing Apple fanboi almost better than all this hate, since he's at least positive and harmless, while what is going on here is purely negative obsession and hate. And so much of it.

If you don't care for Apple, just ignore them and their products, please. Care for what you like and use and buy. I really can't stand it anymore.

Surface RT: Freedom luvin' app-huggers beware

Re: "the inability to install desktop apps will protect users from many threats"

"But in reality, how many meaningful Windows threats ever needed to be installed like a desktop app, rather than just run as a simple executable (or, for the better exploits, opened and loaded like an ordinary document, with or without macros, or even just simple unauthenticated remote access buffer overflows ).

Those attack vectors are not in any way being blocked by being unable to install apps in general."

Of course they are blocked. These things won't run any unsigned code not coming from the store. App or executable or whatever.

And yes, I think it's a good idea. If you don't like it, get a proper computer instead of an appliance.

Desktop apps or not?

It's confusing because it has a desktop mode that runs Office and Explorer and the system settings and tools, but nothing else. It looks very much like ordinary Windows with a touch-friendly layer on top and the desktop beneath it but it isn't. It looks as if you COULD install "normal Windows software" but aren't allowed to. For the mere mortal it will look like another licensing fence. Lately I was asked quite a bit about "the new Windows iPad" (really) and whenever I started to explain WinRT and ARM and Intel versions eyes clouded over, eyebrows rose and heads shook.

Re: thinking ahead

And if you want to photograph a document lying on a table (for me the most common use for a camera on a tablet when I don't have a scanner handy) you have to angle it away from you to have the camera pointing straight downwards.

Idiotic idea, really. How often do you need the camera on the back pointing exactly horizontally when you have the thing propped up on a table? What for?

Carphone Warehouse outs LG-made Google Nexus 4 smartphone

Re: Not enough?

There's also the OS on there and apps and their data and photos and whatnot. Put 3 or 4 GB of music on it (and many people aren't very good at pruning their music library and dragging files around all day) and it already gets very tight very soon. No, 8GB with no extension is just not enough these days for a smartphone. My phone has 16GB and I have to clean things up now and then already to make room.

Can't believe that

8 GB? I mean, my Nexus 7 gets away with only 8GB because I don't have any music on it and it has no camera either, so no photos piling up. But on a smartphone I would want to carry some music and photos and whatever.

Technically I can understand that Google shies away from SD-cards for storage. But no SD cards and only measly 8GB of Flash? Never.

Apple's iPad Mini mishap: scratching out the retina screen

Re: Apple Share Price ....

I don't care at all, but just to inject some facts: It does this every time. There's hype, people are buying Apple stock, then the facts are out, people are selling and then it slowly goes up again. Check back in a week.

No idea. The Nexus also is heavier, thicker, has a smaller screen and hardly any apps apart from scaled-up smartphone apps that make you use the menu and back buttons all the time while the screen is half empty.

And yes, I own a Nexus 7. It made me appreciate the form-factor just enough to lust after a similar sized tablet with decent apps quite a bit. I would agree though that the iPad mini is a bit on the expensive side. Still, I don't doubt a second that it will sell very well, and for good reasons.

LG Vu 5in Android phone-tablet review

Re: Battery

Ever had a smartphone? These things last quite a while in standby (which means you don't use all the screen and power) and not so long at all if you do something on them.

Apple iPod Touch 5G review

Re: popular with kids

Funny enough they didn't lose the mp3 player segment at all, even with hundreds of much cheaper players in the market against the good old iPod.

The iPod touch isn't a media player, it's basically a pocket-sized iPad nano. And for many people even iTunes support is a good thing (and judging from the interest in Android media players with some kind of iTunes sync support this isn't even limited to Apple fanbois -- dragging files around to manage your music is a bit like filling the tank of your car from pint-sized bottles you have to uncork first).

Anyway, if the leaked pricing lists from Germany a few days ago are any indicator, there will be a WiFi-only 8GB iPad mini for LESS than the iPod touch.

Iffy image said to signify incoming 10in Google tablet

Not so easy at all

I mean, a 10" tablet is easy, but on the Nexus 7 the usual smartphone Android apps are already a bit of a letdown. A handful of tiny buttons squeezed into the top-left corner, lots of empty screen and hitting the menu button for just about everything won't get more fun on 10".

After using a Nexus 7 for a few weeks now I can fully understand why the larger Android tablets didn't sell. There are hardly any tablet apps for Android. It's just about bearable on the (still rather small) Nexus 7, but on a larger tablet? No, thanks.

Google rolls out new, cheaper Chromebooks 'for everyone'

Re: Target market

Yes, if there is one thing Chrome OS is fine for than it's simple office tasks. But why a small notebook then? Make it a smallish all-in-one desktop with a 19" screen and this thing will sell. No problems with the requirement of reliable net access there either.

iPhone 5 is the 'most difficult, scratchy device Foxconn has ever made'

Yeah, but rubber boots are also less prone to damage than smart leather shoes and still people prefer leather.

This is no different as with many other things. Plastic cups don't shatter that easily, people still prefer glass and china.

It's only people who think that smartphones are nothing but tools or small computers or office machinery who think that plastic is the best choice. For most people though they are more like furniture or shoes or clothing or a nice car. Ugly, cheap plastic just isn't going to win them over.

'Mapsgate' fails to dislocate iPhone 5 demand

Re: Innovation @uhuznaa

The difference between Apple and MS is that MS has/had about 95% of the market while Apple has much less. Apple just can't afford to be that lazy.

I totally agree by the way that Apple has shown a very visible lack of pushing iOS (and OS X) forward. I'm not so sure about the hardware, there's not much they could do here apart from small things. The iPhone in 2007 was a Big Bang and you can't have these every year.

Innovation

Wikipedia says:

"Innovation is the development of new customer value through solutions that meet new needs, unarticulated needs, or old customer and market needs in new ways. This is accomplished through different or more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are readily available to markets, governments, and society. Innovation differs from invention in that innovation refers to the use of a better and, as a result, novel idea or method, whereas invention refers more directly to the creation of the idea or method itself. "

Apple may not invent very much at all and still be bloody innovative.

The truth is...

that the 5 is still a bloody good smartphone. It has its own share of disadvantages, true, but still: Its a nice, stylish, very responsive and fluid, easy to use smartphone with a great, quick and easy to use camera, the panorama feature works extremely well and with no fussing around at all, there are lots of very nice apps for it that don't reek of "computer" at all (as opposed to many Android apps)... Basically it's a joy to use if what you want is an appliance and not a computer. The maps suck a fair bit, the cables and adapters are bloody expensive, but these are things you can live with.

And I even don't own one. I also don't like Apple as a company. Still, nice phone. Don't pretend everyone buying one is an idiot.

Momentum builds for iPad Mini launch

Re: Ermmm

The 4th gen touch starts at £169.

iPad mini to go on sale in one month?

Re: To stop us all posting the usual buy/no-buy/walled garden comments...

After using a Google Nexus 7 for a week now I can very well understand the allure of an iPad mini. It's a fabulous device, but it's more of a PC than an appliance. Great if you love to tinker around but less great if you just want a polished way of getting some things done without having to care about what's actually happening on a technical level.

Ridiculing people who have no interest in dealing with the computer side of all this is just idiotic.

Analysts slash Ultrabook sales estimate by over 50%

Re: Come on, let's have a real advance ...

An e-ink screen with a screen refresh rate of twice a second if you're lucky? Not really?

Tim Cook: 'So sorry for Apple's crap maps app - try Bing or Nokia'

Re: Apple has peaked

I don't want to praise Apple or the iPhone, but I'm sick of all this "style over substance" crying. Because style is important. People buy clothing, shoes, cars, furniture, houses, EVERYTHING by style and beauty instead of just by "substance". You're wearing rubber boots all day?

Smart phones aren't just tools or office machinery or computers. Not for most people. They're much closer to clothing and shoes: They have to do their job, but they also have to look and feel good and make you feel good. Not understanding that doesn't make you clever.

Elon Musk's new re-usable, hovering rocket ship in first test liftoff

Re: A few points

"IIRC it hit M3 (far from sub orbital but impressive for an all composite aeroshell) and 10s of 1000s of feet altitude."

3,140 meters (about 1000 feet) altitude with 142 seconds of flight time was the record flight. This is basically nothing, this thing was a demo for vertical landing and nothing else. There's a lot of nostalgia going on with that thing. It surely was a nice project, but far, far away from a spacecraft.

Re: A few points

You shouldn't forget though that DC-X was in no way a spacecraft. This thing was a demonstrator for some things (vertical landing and rapid turnaround) and launching to space was not among these, not by far. You can go rather cheap and quick if all you want to do ever is going up a few hundred feet and landing again.

X-33 instead was planned as a (sub-)orbital fully reusable single-stage spaceplane. Totally different thing, really.

Re: still not really sure about this

I think the major problem with this approach is that you'll have to fly your rocket stage back through the thicker atmosphere with the large, very light and nearly empty tank pointing forward and the heavy engines, turbopumps and thrust structure at the end. Maintaining enough control over this thing to keep it from tumbling and pointing the heavy bits forward is a challenge. Try to throw a dart with the fins pointing forward to see what happens. This thing will be extremely unstable in atmospheric flight.

But it's good they're trying. Recovering and even soft-landing the first stage could make launches much cheaper. Even more so with the F9 Heavy which will add two more first stages as boosters (and these will burn out much sooner and will be easier to return).

Rumour: Asus rejects $99 Nexus 7... rumour

Re: Go for it!

The Nexus 7 is a nice and unexpensive device (I'm typing on one right now) but it's not an iPad. It's a totally different thing. If you want an appliance the Nexus sucks, if you want a tablet computer the iPad sucks.

And why should Google/Asus make it even cheaper as it already is?

Eric Schmidt: Ha ha, NO Google maps app for iPhone 5

Hey, The Register

I'm somewhat missing content here. Apart from dissing Apple there seems to be an appreciable lack of decent articles that people read and comment on.

I've started to read The Register many, many years ago (yes, I'm a veteran) for the snappy, wide-ranging and sometimes even witty reporting on all things IT. Lately The Register seems to do nothing but cater to the IT-equivalent of embassy-burning muslims everywhere. The problem is that there is no lack of this anywhere and to be honest, mostly the comments, that is: your readers are better at it than your authors anyway. You've become an Apple-haters forum. Your reviews seem to be written by someone musing about devices over a pint or five decorated with PR images straight from the company PR department. The only articles that draw hits and comments are "Apple fucked the Prophet's daughter!!!" or such.

(Full disclosure: I'm writing this using Google Chrome on an Apple Macbook, in my pocket is an iPhone 4, besides me lays a Google Nexus 7 Android tablet, my feet rest on a PC running FreeBSD, my job is keeping a flock of Windows-PCs, Linux-Servers, Android-Phones and iPads happy.)

I'm a brain-fanboi and what's going on here is insulting my brain and my decency.

So: "The hand that bites IT" needs to rear up its head and look around for a change. There's more than Apple in IT, you know.

Apple's brilliant plan to fix iOS Maps: Get YOU to do it

I'm not sure. Look what Steve Jobs said about Apple and "its attitude of arrogance" (his words) back in 2007 (shortly after returning to Apple) and its very hard not to agree with him:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnO7D5UaDig&#t=600s

He's talking about the old Apple and the Mac of course, but every word fits perfectly at today's Apple and the iPhone. "Reinventing the wheel might end up 10% better but usually it ends up 50% worse" -- just classic.

Apple may have botched it, but

the old maps app used data licensed and sourced from Google. Apple had only very little leeway to do anything with that data apart from displaying maps. Which was good and fine in 2007 but not today.

Now Apple has its own data and can offer map APIs to third-party app developers to do whatever they want with it in their own apps.

In a perfect world the data would be as good or better as Google, but it obviously isn't. I have no idea if Apple was just lazy and cheap and couldn't be bothered to buy better data or if this just a really tough job. But I have no doubt that staying with Google here was not an option for Apple. They're between a rock and a hard place. Even renewing the contract with Google and still not being able to offer navigation would have led to much ridicule too.

And really, Apple was *never* good at much besides hardware. Building a global mapping/navigation database is nothing you do in a few months or even two years anyway.

Apple iPhone 5 review

Re: Excuse me...

SJ has never been shy on changing this mind.

Anyway, in 2007 phones still were getting smaller and smaller and compared to contemporary phones the original iPhone was a brick. Anything larger would have doomed it. Things have changed, people use their smartphones all day long for so many things that they accept even much larger phones now. Things change and was was right yesterday doesn't have to be right today.

Anyway, I hate Apple, I think iOS is getting stale, but the hardware looks and feels great. Funny enough most Windows-Phones also look rather good while Android phones tend to look rather gaudy. Why is this so? Offer me a Lumia with Android and I'll buy it...

Latest iPhone hacked to blab all your secrets

More about the Galaxy S3 exploit

"MWR showed an exploit against a previously undiscovered vulnerability on a Samsung Galaxy S3 phone running Android 4.0.4. Through NFC it was possible to upload a malicious file to the device, which allowed us to gain code execution on the device and subsequently get full control over the device using a second vulnerability for privilege escalation."

At least Apple was wise enough to leave NFC out of the iPhone 5...

Seriously, paying with NFC when the hardware you rub your phone against can just take it over then seems to be a very bad idea.

They're all fumbling around, all of them.

Fans rap Apple's 'crap' Map app

Re: Native Google maps

There're loads of nav apps and even Google Earth already in the App Store.

The maps app sucks still.

Apple iOS 6 review

Not that useful on a 4

You get hardly any of the new features (no turn-by-turn, no 3D maps, no Siri, no panorama cam) but Google Maps and with it Street View will be gone for good.

This is poor, especially since at least navigation and Siri should work just fine on it.

Lightning strikes fresh iPad Mini shots

Re: Financial advice...

And hating something you can't afford to buy makes you look like what exactly?

Low income is one thing, fighting about a few hundred bucks for something you'll use at least two years is another. If you can (and want to) afford that this doesn't make you ignorant.

Re: How times change

But then the rumored iPad Mini isn't 7". It's 8" and has about 40% more screen surface than a 7" tablet. With the same resolution as the larger iPad, it also will have exactly the same pixel density and absolute UI element sizes as the original iPhone. If you can use an iPhone you'll be able to use that thing too.

Besides, markets change and SJ never had any problem to change his views accordingly. OK, he can't do this anymore now...

Re: that looks nothing like an iPad to me....

The Apple logo isn't painted on, it's plastic in a hole in the alu case, serving as a RF-window for the WiFi antenna behind it.

Looks perfectly legit to me.

Fanboys order 2m iPhone 5s in 24 hours

Re: Well who's the next company to have sleepless nights?

That's what bandwidth caps are for. And the inability to get an Internet connection without a landline for much (or anything) less than both together.

These companies have heard the chimes very well and they're biding their time and while they're doing that they're very busy to set up ways to suck your blood in totally new ways. No need to worry for them, really.

Re: Not surprised.

The 4s is 2x as fast than the 4. Its GPU *still* eats almost all Android phones for lunch. It finally fixed the antenna problems and has a camera that maybe two or three recent Android phones can top. I wouldn't call that "very small, almost to the point of irrelevance". The 4s is, if you aren't allergic to anything Apple or totally need a really large screen, still a very, very decent smartphone.

And many people like this kind of evolutionary product philosophy. It assures them that their expensive phone isn't rendered obsolete half a year after they've bought it by the next, totally different iteration. And the 4s will get iOS 6 with nearly all the features the 5 has. Even the 4 will get nearly all of this.

Not to praise Apple, but Apple is doing a fucking lot of things right. People like Apple products enough to throw money in that direction for very good reasons. I would really like to have makers of Android phones finally understand these reasons.

I totally agree that iOS is getting stale [technical term]. I also agree that Apple is just greedy and has perfected the art of making money for the sake of making money. I utterly hate them for that. But they're making great products. If this is too much of a mind stretch to bear you'll never be able to understand what's going on.

I agree with that but I think most people don't see this as anything bad. iOS is straight, simple and extremely easy to figure out casually. I've set up an iPad a year ago for someone at work and only a few days ago the guy asked for a way to switch between apps and/or really quitting them without going to the home screen. Yes, he used the thing for a year and didn't miss the task switching bar.

And I'm not meaning to say he's dumb. He totally isn't. But he certainly has better things to do than to dive into the technical details and hidden features of the devices he uses. The best thing is that aside from selecting and installing a few apps for what he needs to do in the beginning there was totally NO support pressure on me with that thing. Nada.

And I have to confess that for my personal use I like iOS. You can't do much apart from launching apps and using them and this is good. There's no temptation to waste time on optimizing and replacing this and that and to tinker around. I never had any computer-like device that worked with such an (almost zero) amount of sysadmin work. Call me a sheep, but working as a sheep certainly has its merits, no joke. Lazy job. Gives me much more time to tame the Linux and BSD machines around here.

Re: Yep

When I was shopping around for a smartphone two years ago, I was torn between a Samsung Galaxy S (the first one) and an iPhone 4. I very nearly bought the SGS, although it felt a bit like rubber boots compared to leather shoes handcrafted in Italy. Then I read about the GPS problems with the SGS and got the iPhone. Which had a GPS system that worked reliably within seconds.

I still use the iPhone 4 and I'm quite happy with it. I just totally can't imagine still being happy with the SGS with the SGS2 and SGS3 around now. To add insult to injury the original SGS is nearly worthless on ebay now compared to the iPhone 4.

In short: There will more "cheap" iPhone 4's and 4S's around very soon, but "cheap" won't mean what you think it means. Time ate much more from the value of the SGS than it was cheaper in the first place. Getting a fresh iPhone every two years or so is quite cheap actually if you figure this in.

I would buy a decent Android phone in a heartbeat now if there were one. Give me a Lumia 920 running Jelly Bean!

Apple iPhone 5 hands-on review

Isn't it ironic?

The same phone running Android would be adored here. I mean, what's wrong with it? Classy case in design and material, very fast hardware, light, thin, great display, fine camera...

Nowadays I think iOS is somewhat stale, yes. The hardware is great though. Two years ago I very nearly bought a Galaxy S and then got an iPhone 4 just because it felt much better. I can't even THINK of using a Galaxy S1 today, it's very much a phone of the past and trying to sell it now would make a very disappointing experience.

Where was getting at? Anyway, nice phone, stale OS. I'm not sure I would commit to another year or two with iOS. But I'm also not buying an expensive plastic phone either. Give me a Lumia running Jelly Been already!