Posts by David Mantripp

iPhone 3.0 beta reveals mixed blessing

@Gary F

"nerdcore" ... bullseye :-)

Apple plays catch-up with new iPhone features

oh whatever

"Technology and features in the iPhone have always been secondary to the cool factor - an area in which Apple is still well ahead of the competition"

Yeah, yeah. What Apple has always tried to avoid, usually succesfully, is to implement features BADLY. So, if you can't initially work out a way to do MMS well, don't do it. Total opposite to Symbian, where you've got everything but practically all of it is so godawfully badly designed that it is totally useless to the average person.

Maybe just part of the reason that it's "cool" is because it actually works, and is a pleasure to use, not a fscking pain in the arse ? Looking nice doesn't do any harm either, but again, the average person doesn't equate a rectangular plastic box studded with more protrusions than a wathog with "looking nice"

Having said that, Copy & Paste on the Newton was very "cool". But it would probably be tricky to implement without a stylus.

iPhone 3.0 gossip lassos MMS, tethering, cut-and-paste...

I can't think of a title

I'm a very recent "convert" to the iPhone, and I'm very familiar with the Nokia N series and Sony Ericsson. It is true that you can, in theory, do many things on these that you can't do on the iPhone, for example app switching and cut and paste. But they are so god-bloody-awfully implemented that they remain totally in edge case territory - 99% of users will not even find them. It is very interesting to see the stats on mobile data access too: the iPhone is wiping the floor with everybody else (although Android is doing pretty well) despite having a much lower market share.

Stuff like threaded SMS (yes, S-E has had it for years, but see above) and, yes, the App store, are why it is selling. No amount of marketing can sustain sales of a crap device over so much time. And being blinded by the irritating behaviour of the (actually very small) fanboy brigade is just sad, as are ad hominen attacks on Steve Jobs and his staff.

It's a remarkable piece of engineering and design, and has been built to respond to the real world needs of people who want a device that works well, rather than to feature list obsessed engineering-led design manifesto.

I hope that Nokia has the guts to bin Symbian and the N-Series warthogs and step up to the challenge.

Twitter breaks Jam Festival record

I am writing a comment on El Reg

Hahaha - who needs BOFH anyway. Half way through the first paragraph I didn't even need to check the byline. And that's a compliment, Andrew.

25 years of Mac - the good, the bad, and the cheese grater

@Wayland Sothcott

I don't think they were Xerox machines at QMC. I think they were ICL Perqs. At least that's what was there in 1980. You could play PacMan on them. They were totally scifi....

Worst ever Mac ? PowerPC 7200, thanks to the non-functioning MacOS 7.5.3

Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah set for top two spots in Christmas Day charts

Zen

Another vote for Cale here. And KD Lang in #2 spot.

Adobe sales are flat in tough market

Useless crap nobody needs, basically-

If their software was actually getting any better, maybe it would be worth buying. But it isn't. It's getting worse. Far from the old, apparently lost value for money and quality ethos infiltrating the dreadful collection of half-baked unstable hacks they acquired from Macromedia, the opposite took place.

Just now, before being sidetracked into this foaming rant, I was using a $100 app, Lineform, to create graphic objects that I then need to paste into Fireworks, which alone costs over twice the price, and has neither the stability, feature set or vision of the former.

Adobe is flatlining because it is a bloated company trying to push crap products nobody wants on a ridiculous synchronised upgrade schedule which means at least half of the upgrades at any particular release point are of zero use to anybody. And the ridiculous prices seem to be driven mainly by the endless, pointless and confusing rebranding overheads.

Customers were getting sick of this CSx bollocks well before the economy went titsup.

Apple ups the ante in Psystar battle

Sorry, is this The Sun letters page?

blimey. People who decide it's worth paying a small (when you add it all up) premium to buy an attractive computer that in general "just works", are now "scum". Are people who buy anything other than a basic model Tata car also "scum", now ? Makes me wonder what Nazis, child molestors and and such like are now... clearly, "scum" has been devalued.

Oracle website 'not found' as Ellison et al schmooze customers

Ha

Oh so that's why Jive Forum has been quietly end-of-life'd..... died of shame.

Noel Edmonds defies BBC's jackbooted enforcers

Yes, Master

There is no IT angle to this story. What is it doing here? I am removing The Register from my bookmarks. Please cancel my subscription. I am also dissatisfied with today's weather. Please make the weather the way I like it. Goodbye.

US judge says University can ignore Christian course credits

BJ University

"To prepare students to excel intellectually and vocationally by offering diverse academic programs rooted in biblical truth and centered on a liberal arts core"

Huh ? Some definition of "liberal" which has previously escaped me....

Paris, 'cos she's graduated from BJ University will full honours

Twitter falls silent in the UK

No free lunch, then

Bugger. That's the end of using Twitter as a free SMS relay service then. I was wondering when they'd realise how much money they've been burning....

American man too fat for execution

@spezzer - you don't get it, do you

Go and read Sarah's comments again. And TRY to understand. Try very hard.

Apple is Fisher-Price of sound quality, says Neil Young

pathetic

I'm with Webster on this one.

What has the world come to - a bunch of fanboys for a flashy consumer electronics company - which has become far closer to "selling sugared water" than John Sculley ever dreamt of - foaming in the mouth and resorting to puerile, uneducated, ad hominen attacks on one of the most principled, original and unique artists of the last 50 years.

Steve Jobs' toy box or Neil Young's Archives ? Well, whatever my choice, I'm pretty sure I know which one will still be sought after in 50 years' time.

All aided and abetted by the El Reg's cynical spin on the original article, natch.

Sony Ericsson C702 rugged handset

Very assisted GPS ?

Pretty amazing that you managed to get a good GPS signal with the C902 ... perhaps you should put the tinfoil hats back on.

iPhone apps hit the racks at the iTunes store

skip

no MMS

no Flash Lite

crap camera

huge size

= no sale.

Peter Gabriel cranks his f*ck machine

I don't remember, I don't recall

They launched this as a desktop app ages ago, sort of plugged into iTunes or something. It was complete pants.

Or maybe I've got no memory of anything, anything at all.

(mine's the one with Wembley Arena 1982 on the back, thanks)

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS20 compact camera

Dark Horse ? Hardly

Huh ? Panasonic's LUMIX brand is the digicam market leader in many countries.

Usual total lack of research or clue by El Reg....

Wikipedia ruled by 'Lord of the Universe'

basically...

...a cult is what big religions call small religions.

Very similar to the IT industry really.

Facebook sued for mis-sending dirty texts

Not necessarily rocket science

Dunno about the US, but in some regions SMS service providers include a number lookup service which can go some way towards designing a solution to this.

But designing something like that gets dangerously close to hard work...

Greenpeace admits iPhone 'compliant' with Euro chemicals rules

Pathetic

So, a completely misrepresentative piece of "journalism" based on highly selective quotes and plain untruths is justification for labelling Greenpeace as "leeches and scum", etc, is it ? Who is the attention whore here ? Greenpeace, or Tony Smith ?

What a wonderful world.

Vyke moves VoIP battle to SMS

Down with Voda

"Both solutions use the data channel to send text messages, breaching the terms and conditions for data bundles - such as Vodafone UK's, which explicitly excludes "text messaging clients".

Surely that is as clear a case of anti-competitive behaviour as even a European Commissioner could hope for ?

Apple's Safari lacks bold vision

SNAFU

"Someone in the PR department obviously failed to talk to their counterpart in the IT department."

No, someone in the PR department obviously failed to LISTEN to their counterpart in the IT department.

Like every software company larger than 5 people in the known universe, I seriously doubt that Apple is PHB-free.

So what's in a URL? The Reg URL?

Whiff of whalesong ?

What about a nice new logo too ? I've seen some really cutting edge stuff for something that escapes me just now around recently.

A hosted 'Web 2.0' requirements management experience

How much kickback ??

Web 2.0 ??? It's got a bit of Ajax layered on top of the usual half-baked jargon ridden bollox, with an "Enterprise Level Marketing" web site to match, featuring standard cut'n'paste photos of some slim blonde bint we're supposed to believe is in some way representative of Requirements Management ???

Give me a break. Get Orlowski to give you a few hints on bullshit detection.

Wales, O'Reilly censorship charter porked by blogosphere

WARNING: NASTY WORDS FOLLOW. DON'T READ OR LINK TO.

"Tim 2.0'Reilly"

ROTFL :-)

I'm sure they're both well-meaning, but at the same time so self-righteous, naive and hopelessly clumsy as only these self-appointed New Age gurus manage to be.

Would Tim _Waterstone_ get involved in this sort of caper ? I doubt it. He'd stick to bookselling. Tim O'Reilly would be well advised to do the same, and not risk his business and employee's jobs by getting himself into dangerous waters, A geek backlash against O'Reilly businesses would be sight to behold - reminiscent of the fallout of a certain prawn sandwich analogy.

And it isreally amazing how succesful Ms Sierra's apparently manipulative tactics are proving to be.