Posts by daiakuma

Fans' loyalty questioned as iPhone popularity plummets

Re: Not a fan

Android is not designed by committee. One person has been in charge of the project ever since it was founded (by him and a few of his mates) in 2003. The person is Andy Rubin. Since 3.0, one man has been in charge of the GUI aspects. That's Mattias Duarte (and he answers directly to Andy Rubin, of course). If you see them interviewed, you will see that these guys very much take personal ownership - and pride - in the work they are doing. And they really do have the end-user in mind. Their ambition is to make the OS as elegant, powerful, smooth and flexible as possible. And, to my mind, they're doing a very good job of that.

Complaining about Samsung selling Android 2.3 phones is really missing the point. Those phones are low-end devices being sold mostly to people who would not be able to afford a proper smartphone if Android didn't exist. If you want the latest software, either buy the latest premium device from an OEM, or buy a Nexus.

Slideshow: A History of the Smartphone in 20 Handsets

I had a P800. I remember it quite fondly. Definitely one of the phones that showed the way forward. The P910 continued the tradition, but then, for some reason, Sony Ericsson seemed to forget where it was going.

Google 'dominance abuse' games may yet mean monster Euro smack

Re: Go away

Google don't have a monopoly in search, so it's logically impossible for them use a monopoly in search to acquire a monopoly in any other market, and even if it did have a monopoly, the implied claim that there "vertical search" is a distinct market from "search" is nonsense. The EU might as well argue that Microsoft Word is abusing its dominance by providing a bundled spell-checker, and thereby unfairly acquiring dominance in the spell-checker market.

As for the idea that monopolies push prices up, it's very hypothetical. Even in the late 19th century, when this idea became fashionable, it was hypothetical. Standard Oil was popular with consumers because they drove the price of oil down. HIstorically, commercial "monopolies" (they never really are monopolies) in fast-evolving industries are unstable. Companies suddenly become very dominant in a market, rule the roost for a few years, and then equally suddenly lose their dominance, and sometimes even disappear, as innovation disrupts the market.

The real driver of "anti-trust" and "anti-monopoly" actions is not an interest in the welfare of the customer, but the lobbying of also-rans who demand that Buggins should be given his turn at the trough. This was true in the 1890s, and it's true now.

Go away

The EU's obsession with Google is getting ridiculous. Restoring competition? In search? When did competition go away? I have a web browser. I can type bing.com into the address bar any time I like. I don't often do it, for the simple reason that Google has some tools and features that I like better. Since when has having a better product counted as "anti-competitive practice"?

As for Almunia, I do not remember ever voting for this Eurocrat to represent me, and I don't think what he is doing serves my interest as a web user one bit. Given the chance, I would vote him out in a moment.

Please, go away with your pointless officious meddling.

LONDON iPHONE 5 MADNESS: 'You must be CRAZY to buy Apple'

Re: Sensationalism

Maybe she was beaming as she shrieked. Quite probable, actually.

Re: Apple = cult

Agreed.

"Apple is crazy, you have to be crazy for Apple"

Substitute Jesus for Apple, and that's exactly what members of whacko evangelical cults say.

Steve Jobs appears to have studied the manipulative psychological techniques that cults use, and applied them systematically in Apple's marketing strategy.

Windows Phone 8: Microsoft quite literally can't lose

If Microsoft want to be sure of WP8 being a success, they should let OEMs skin it.

Samsung to offer Apple Dock style Start Button in Windows? Really?

"It is most unlikely to wish to incur Apple's wrath again." -- Apple would be insane to try to sue over the dock, given that it was on RISC OS first, and then on the Amiga, before it arrived on NeXT and then Mac OS. Then again, if they sued in Cupertino, where prior art counts for nothing, apparently, who knows what would happen?

Why do you call it "Apple" dock style? That kind of dock originated in RISC OS.

South Korea bans Apple's AND Samsung's ageing phones, tabs

Re: Missing the biggest part of the story

Samsung are NOT allowed to demand an "unacceptable amount" for their FRAND patents.

FRAND stands for "Fair, Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory".

If the patents were not standards-essential, they would not be subject to FRAND rules, and Samsung would be able to demand any fee they liked, or refuse to licence them. Then if Apple were unwilling to pay the fee and unable to persuade Samsung to negotiate a fee that was acceptable to them, their options would be either to design around each patent (finding an alternative way to do things), or remove the offending feature(s) entirely from their product(s).

Apple's patent insanity infects Silicon Valley

Re: Absolutely Wrong

One small correction there: the original iPhone did not have "apps". In fact, Steve Jobs was opposed to the idea of people downloading apps. Pressure from developers led to Apple launching an App Store in mid-2008, when they launched the 3GS.

iPhone 5 poised to trounce Android, devastate BlackBerry?

Re: Korea

The report as given here doesn't include any breakdown of how many people were asked in each location, let alone how each location responded, so maybe they just asked two Chinese people and one Korean. I agree with you that the idea of my Koreans planning to buy iPhones is not credible. Android has > 90% market share in that country.

Trouble is, iPhones aren't particularly easy to use. They might be, compared to a typical Windows Mobile or Symbian device of yore, but not compared to current Android or Windows Phone 7 phones.

Skewed Sample

The survey is unreliable because it is based on a skewed sample. In the study sample, 52% of respondents have an iPhone, and 26% have an Android phone. In the real world, the figures are the other way around: Android has a 59% share and iPhone has 23% (as of Q1 this year). To expand their share of the market to much higher than its present position, Apple would have to introduce a genuinely cheap iPhone so as to penetrate the low end of the market. They show no signs of any interest in doing such a thing, so they are stuck at 20-something per cent.

There have been surveys like this before. In 2011 there was one from the same Piper Jaffray, which had similar results (64% of respondents said their next phone would be an iPhone), but Android kept on growing, and Apple stayed flat.

More Steve Jobs iPad mini attacks from beyond the grave

Depends on what phone you're using. Ask a Galaxy Note owner.

'Regrouping' Android tablet makers extend Apple reign

What if...

What happens if everyone in the next couple of years buys "phablets" (such as the Samsung Galaxy Note and the LG Optimus Vu)? Where will those fit into the statistics? Phablets don't apparently figure in these numbers, but they do compete in this market, and they could eventually kill off the sales of full-sized tablets almost entirely.

The Great Smartphone OS Shoot-out

Repeat with latest phones

The shoot-out format is good, but this review needs to be done again ASAP, with Android 4.0 and WP7.5, instead of Gingerbread on HTC and WP7, so that all phones are using the latest OS.

Michael Dell declines to eat his Apple (humble) pie

Turns out, Apple's results for the quarter were disappointing.

Ten... Androids to outshine the iPhone 4S

Foolish critique. Can't you spot a joke?

It's humorous writing. The guy doesn't actually spend his lunchtimes as described. You're supposed to chuckle at the image, in the same way as you're supposed to chuckle at the witty similes ("a bit like saying you’d rather date Beyoncé than Rihanna because she has the slightly better singing voice", "crisper than freshly picked lettuce that’s been dipped in liquid nitrogen", etc.)

Toshiba launches thick Thrive tablet in Europe

Are you really that frail?

A lot of paperback novels weight three quarters of a kilo, and people read them in bed. It's a 150 g (1/3rd) heavier than the lightest tablets, which is nothing to get distressed about. If carrying this tablet causes you injury, you must be rather frail already. Meanwhile, there's the extra convenience that all those ports afford.

Steve Jobs bends iPad price reality

If price is what matters...

So the iPad 2 is cheaper than the most expensive Android tablet currently on the market? That's nice.

If price is really my priority, there are several decent Android tablets available for under $300 (with no contract), and more that are under $400.

Binatone HomeSurf 7 Android tablet

OLTP

We may mock, but the emergence of sub-£100 tablets like these represents the beginning of the end of the "digital divide". Commerce is achieving what Nicholas Negroponte talked about.

Beastly Android will batter Apple's iOS beauty

All replies must have titles. It's the law.

Android 2.3 ("Gingerbread") has just been released. It is very good. Android 3.0 ("Honeycomb") is due in the spring, and from the demos it appears to be completely awesome. If I were Apple, I'd be worried. There is a serious risk that they will be left playing catch-up.

Viewsonic ViewPad 7 Android tablet

I disagree with you on the form factor

I think 7" is the perfect size; big enough to be useful, small enough to be portable. In my opinion, the iPad is too big, If you could fold it in half, it would be great, but you can't.

Microsoft steers OEMs away from putting Phone 7 on Tablets

Ordinary users do not need open source

The assertion that "Everyone needs... the OS to be cheap, and better still, open source" is nonsense. Most end-users have no interest in source code at all, and gain nothing from having access to it. The sight would frighten them. Even most developers have no interest in OS source code other than APIs, and no desire to tweak any of it. Such would just be a time-wasting distraction.

The whole Open Source idea is a hangover from the 1970s/80s, when most users were programmers, most programmers worked for universities or for hardware vendors, and most applications comprised 2000 lines or less of code. It is lately being pushed by a hippie element, who see it, naively, as a weapon against capitalism.

In fact, the group that benefits most from open source is the big corporations that have large software budgets (Oracle, IBM, Google, Samsung, to name a few). It enables them to leverage the work of thousands of computer programmers free of charge, often saving many millions of £$€. They then use this free software to sell hardware or services and gain increased profit margins. The people who benefit least are programmers, whose wages are pushed downward by the competition from free software.

Ubuntu gets pre-Koala cloud love

"Karmic Koala": Interesting name

Apart from living on eucalyptus leaves, koalas are famous for having unusually small brains. Is this significant?

Billy Bragg: Why should songwriters starve so others get rich?

Yes, it is stealing, and yes, the effect is the same

You're a student in a student flat, and your flatmate is a freetard freeloader who steals your milk.

The freetard possibly thinks: "Milk is in effectively infinite supply; it's just data, an arrangement of molecules which can be reproduced endlessly by the mammary glands of cows in accordance with DNA programming. Therefore I'm taking nothing from my flatmate when I take milk."

The first sentence of the freetard's thought is correct, the second does not follow. The thieving freetard has deprived the victim of the benefits they reasonably expected after expending time, effort and money to get milk from the shop. The victim experiences disappointment at the loss of this expected benefit, is pained to see that some people cannot be trusted, and is motivated to take expensive measures to prevent future milk theft, or possibly simply to stop buying milk in future.

The long term outcome of freetard thievery is that everyone loses, even the freetard.

As with milk, so with music, writing, video, software, inventions, design, photography, painting, et cetera.