* Posts by F1reman

40 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Mar 2009

iPad 2: Apple forced to make carrier concessions

F1reman
Flame

more anti-Apple nonsense

quote "This factor alone makes the Motorola Xoom, which will be upgradeable to LTE soon, the most dangerous rival to the iPad 2 in the US, and goes some way to justify the high price tag."

I was under the impression that the yet to be released XOOM! HAS! TO! BE! SENT! BACK! TO! MANUFACTURER! TO! ENABLE! LTE!

so is this a viable argument to make? Especially considering that having to send something back to the vendor for an advertised feature should surely justify a LOWER price, not a higher price.

Try writing an article like this; at least it's intentionally funny….

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2011/02/alt-text-apple-subscriptions/

Beastly Android will batter Apple's iOS beauty

F1reman
Coat

Objective

Here is an interesting interview with a developer who has been "successful" on multiple mobile platforms:

http://technmarketing.com/iphone/peter-vesterbacka-maker-of-angry-birds-talks-about-the-birds-apple-android-nokia-and-palmhp/

Mac sales tripled since 2005

F1reman
Badgers

Hey Geoff!

I know what you mean: "it's not apples products, it what happens to the twats who buy them!"

If it's generally considered that only twats fly around in planes would you then take the train to Moscow instead of catching a flight?

Who cares what a bunch of twats people are when they find something better and want to tell everyone else about it. After all that's what twats do, right? You ever found anything you really like about something and wanted to tell people about it? You twat.

Forgive human nature a bit Geoff and don't be ignorant to different/new things because the messengers are unfashionable cheddar cheeses.

Nokia sets Russian plod on blogger

F1reman
Go

heh

mobile-review has always been a no nonsense site. Nokia continue to release sporadic de-centralised crap. It's not surprising the two (specialist web sites and Nokia(tm)) have fallen out.

Apple revamps Mac Mini as skinny HDMI box

F1reman

apple turds

People will buy this though... but those people would buy a turd so long as it had an Apple logo and was multi-touch

rofl :--D

I don't know why I'm laughing though, coz I'm getting one.

New wave of superphones poised to challenge iPhone 4

F1reman
Coat

missing something

There is no doubt that AMOLED screens have some huge advantages. However, they have one major drawback: u can't see 'em for shit in the daylight. Why did you not mention this in your article please? Were you not aware?

The iPhone 4 looks like a genuinely good product but if it's in-superior to it's current and future competitors why am I ready articles about it? Why does the iphone even feature? why are we constantly bashing it when it's not even been released yet?

O2 gets legal on Ofcom

F1reman

I can't stand the operators

but isn't it funny that it's actually very difficult to find an article on the web that details the fact that everyone's but 02 and vodafone's frequency are shit if you live indoors.

cue links

I wish we had signal available on the tube.

F1reman

it's "shome mishtake, shurely"

thanks to private eye

Jobsian Vendetta - Flash stabbed by Mac the Knife

F1reman
Jobs Halo

Apple worry Adobe would be difficult to work with

You can bet that there had been high level discussions before hand between Apple and Adobe with Apple asking Adobe nicely not to release the tool. Adobe decided to force Apple in to a choice: piss off the geeks and certain developers or let a 3rd party start to have some say in design and release schedules of iPhone OS.

i.e. If 20% of apps are built using Adobe's tools then Apple would have to wait for those tools to work with new versions of iPhone OS before release. It's called backwards compatibility and it's been a problem for everyone for years. Apple, having learnt from their and others mistakes in the past know perfectly well that in order to maintain good margins they need to stay ahead of the game. Adobe would hold them back in this respect. I mean no-one here is going to accuse Adobe of being quick at release schedules (full flash on phones anyone? I mean how long have they had!!).

Also, google coming out so vocally in favour of flash recently (considering their normal 'open everything' rhetoric) smacks of trying to be seen to be offering something the iPhone OS will not do after it's release in june....

It's all business politics of course but I really don't think that the prime motivator here is Jobs not liking apps being built for other platforms because he will realise that Adobe will just go ahead and continue to make the tools available for all other willing participants (Google, Nokia, Microsoft, whoever else) anyway regardless and as such wouldn't the iPhone be missing out on these apps? Right?

There is a long history between Adobe and Apple. Apple is the king maker now and Adobe ain't used to being told what to do by Apple. I think Adobe showed themselves to have bad business practice here and it may have backfired....flash is long in tooth and is buggy and so on (although video it can use H.264 as a codec so what's the big deal?) and this could spell beginning of end. Frankly if this is how they behave as a company you gotta worry (have you read the twitters and blogs coming from their employees? and their CEO came across as a moron in that interview he did). Just a view...

F1reman
Coat

Agreed

I have to say I agree with 'Tim Cook' on this point. A lot of people come on these comments and make silly points simply cos they don't like one manufacturer or the other. Like the guys says nobody is making you do anything.

Fact is a I really like my iphone because it is easy to use, a pleasure to use and is reliable. I can't say the same when I use flash based websites on either my W7 PC or my Macbook. Nor can I say the same for the various Nokia and SE phones I owned before.

I used to dislike Apple (or more precisely the people who owned Apple products) but now that I've actually gone out, bought and used a couple of their products I can see where people are coming from. They are just much nicer to use and frankly life's too short to bother with 'one OS, multiple hardware platforms'....I mean have google learnt nothing from Mircosoft?

Anyway.

F1reman
Coat

as opposed to:

DCE_RPC, NBT, IE6/7/8, WMV, Windows Media Player, Windows Vista, er....the list goes on and on....

As opposed to:

Buzz (which they pushed out without privacy on purpose BTW), wave, paid for results, and a whole load of other crap designed to provide private user data for their ads business....

Come off it, of all of them Apple is probably the least worst. At least they make a decent phone and decent music players. Oh, and my macbook air is great too (and cheaper than the Sony x series).

F1reman

you mean like webapps?

Type your comment here — plain text only, no HTML

Steve Jobs: mystery patent pool to attack Ogg Theora

F1reman
Thumb Up

Thank you

I cannot contribute because I know nothing about US patent law or EU standards definitions but what I can say is thank you to all of you who've posted some very informative comments. It's been a very interesting read.

For what it's worth I'm falling behind Jobs and H.264 (i.e. Sleepys comment).

Steve Jobs issues open letter on Flash

F1reman
Coat

shillish

I read Steve Jobs article and it all made sense. Harsh but true. Don't see what your problem is....oh, sorry,your problem's apple isn't it.

Police send Reg hack CRB check database

F1reman
FAIL

irresponsible

You shouldn't have published because in fact the article achieves nothing other than good copy for El Reg.

The fact is it was an innocent mistake. The person responsible would have been in just as much trouble whether article was published or not. The IT systems would have been adjusted to make sure such a breach does not occur again whether the aritcle was published or not (password/encrypt/monitoring of outbound attachments etc). The article does therefore only serve to undermine confidence in a public service in which it is essential the public has trust.

Of course it's a fine line between what is in the public interest at the expense of public confidence.

When I was readin your article I thought to myself that it was not a good one to publish and that there are far more great police officers in the various forces than there are bad and that articles such as these just undermine everyone but for no actual public achievement/gain. It was right of you to add in the line at the end about disclosure but I feel that you got it wrong on this occasion.

Next time ask yourself; what does making this story public achieve? What are my real/honest motivations for publishing the story?

Adobe to sue Apple 'within weeks,' says report

F1reman
Jobs Halo

Wouldn't any real developer...

...write in the native code rather than use a GUI or higher level language to do it for them?

Royal Navy starts work on new, pointless frigates

F1reman

I think it is clear...

...with the benefit of hindsight that canceling the TSR2 was a good thing coz it would never have been used in anger and which other country would have bought it in any significant numbers? So I think we saved ourselves some money there (and it's easy to forget that the TSR2 was dogged by production problems).

Lewis Pages articles often preach following the above logic: don't waste a lot of our money building stuff that ain't gonna be used simply to maintain an arms industry that builds things that ain't going to be used (or sold in any significant numbers).

And besides, we've not been able to compete with the US or Russia since WW2. Eurofighter v F-22 anyone? It's a hard fact to take but we're a small little island that is living off the past. If it hadn't been for North Sea Oil god knows.

I know it's tough for you to admit that we can't afford projects like the TSR2. Indeed, why do you lament the demise of the hugely expensive and unnecessary TSR2 but yet complain bitterly to anyone that'll listen about Labours mishandling of the public debt (yes you do). I bet you also go and watch the Vulcan fly (sorry, limp) around the air show circuit with a nostalgic tear in your eye. It's because of people like you that we've had to put up with successive Tory governments since the war. And because so many Tory governments got voted in we ended up with a right wing labour government. Which you then ignorantly complain about. Well, we get what we deserve, don't we.

Bloggers spring 'baccy happy landlord from slammer

F1reman
Pint

smoking ban generally good thing, what's the deal?

The landlord guy's an idiot for breaking the law like he did (no wonder the man went bankrupt) and therefore the 'anti-establishment' blogs have undermined themselves by supporting such a pointless cause. Landlords this stupid deserve to be locked up and in fact the court decision was probably doing society a favour by weeding out the weak links in the population. Besides, there's really no credence in being anti-establishment simply for the sake of it.

Moving on, I personally can't see a problem with landlord choice on smoking. Does anyone know what the governments argument against such an implementation was? Too complicated or expensive to administer? Can't remember....

Google to mobile industry: ‘F*ck you very much!’

F1reman
Coat

I just don't understand what...

...all the fuss is about.

Google are just competition who don't play by golf club rules and as anyone who has dealt with the mobile operators in this country will testify, thank god for people like google and can we have more of them please.

What is it that we're meant to be so scared/angry with Google about exactly? They collect lots of data so that they can make everything free/pay by ads? So you don't want it with ads? Don't want your data collected? so go else where and pay for your search, email, streetview then...oh, and you'd better stop using your credit card right now coz guess what? they know and keep records of all those porn sites you subscribe to and have done for years...and your real name and where you live.

Those dystopias you mention were written by drug fueled very paranoid authors with vivid imaginations. "Utopia will never be Utopia as long as humans exist in Utopia" Get used to the idea, we get what we deserve.

I'll get me coat coz I bought the t-shirt.

O2 takes a Christmas break

F1reman
Jobs Halo

live life in ignorance then...

....I'm not sure about customer support, i.e. 3's might have improved but as for data coverage:

http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&source=hp&q=uk+3g+data+coverage+map&btnG=Google+Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=uk+3g+data+coverage+map&fp=a60718907b4ba39b

u anonymous numpty

Halo Steve just to wind you up a bit more. Haha!

F1reman
Flame

Thank you!

I have not been able to get data connectivity since yesterday and yes this did happen before. When it happened before (presumably July but can't remember exactly) I phoned o2 who told me there were no problems and that I should wr erase my device and restore from backup, which I did, twice and it must have been coincidence that it started working after the second restore. Guess what I did last night? Fuck o2 and fuck companies who don't fucking have the balls to tell their customers what is really going on they could have saved me a lot of time.

I'm going to Three as soon as my contract runs out with o2 in March. I've already unlocked the handset so good to go....as far away from o2 as possible! Although 3 customer support is apparently worse who cares when you're paying £16 pm for the same deal as o2 charge £45. Oh, and apparently 3 have much better data coverage.

Anna Friel spectator brings up his Breakfast at Tiffany's

F1reman
Happy

Why do Actresses feel the need to go naked

Friel seems to do it a lot. I guess she must be an exhibitionist.

If someone puked over me I'd find him and thump him. The prick. F****** funny though, nice one Lester.

Nokia N86 8Mp cameraphone

F1reman
Thumb Down

Really strange....

....a phone that time has passed by. The N82 replacement but years too late.

If Nokia could produce a capacitive touchscreen device with a really nice user interface and a camera as good as the one on review then maybe there would be some genuine interest.

I mean with the specs of an HD2 or Droid, and with the usability of phones like the iPhone on the market, surely releases like the N86 signal the beginning of the end for Nokia (outside of India). They're just no where near. N97 mini? Awaiting the n900 brick with interest.

3 to offer iPhone next year

F1reman

can't wait to get on to three

3 don't block stuff (i.e. they allow skype, SSH, Telnet over 3G), they have the best 3g coverage in the country, have decent speeds AND their plans are often much cheaper and less restrictive (see above) of comparable contracts from other operators.

Meanwhile, I've phoned o2 tech support once and the one time I did need to speak to them about an outage where I live, they told me to blap my phone instead. o2 3g coverage is appalling. My phone always says I've got 3g coverage but then when I actually begin to use a data connection the icon on the phone immediately changes to GPRS. And I live in LONDON, FFS! iphone.tvcatchup.com? Forget it on 02 - it's jerko vision if it plays at all.

And just before you start harping on about call connection rates, about once every two weeks I get somebody telling me that they went straight to voice-mail whilst my handset was switched on and apparently working with 02. I tested this problem by dialing using my work phone and sure enough! Thanks o2 :)

I'm not a great fan of o2 and am very relieved to hear that I will eventually be able to move to 3 (or even Orange for that matter).

WriteRoom

F1reman
Thumb Down

bit steep

1.19 seems a bit steep but it's actually £2.99 - you ought to change the review to reflect this.

Also, Awesome Note is cheaper at 2.39 and to my mind does quite a bit more but the bits it does which overlap it does just as well AND it syncs with google docs.

the dictionary review was closer to the mark, especially the mention of the free dictionary.com

O2 could impose out-of-contract iPhone lock-in

F1reman
Coat

what's the law say

Bill,

Can you clarify what the law states regarding unlocking of handsets once a contract expires? Do you know if there is precedent for this?

iPhone and Windows Mobile get the (Gmail) Push

F1reman
Happy

CELEBRATE!! (madonna song)

OMG I've been waiting for this for like ages so cool

i don't have many friends or anything (I read the register after all) BUT I DO have some techie friends with whom I can spunk over the fact that we have FREE push email at last :-)

I LOVE Google!!

And if you think any of the above is an awful attempt at humour you're wrong, stop being so cynical.

Oh and btw @ the gimp who mentioned push IMAP - don't post here if you're a clueless fool please. Waste my time.

GTA maker coughs up $20m for 'hot coffee' sex

F1reman

Why are we still so shocked by sex

that's a really good point. what the hell was all the fuss about? over a sex scene between two consenting adults when the game is full of psychopathic violence?

What is it Catholics (i.e. vast chunks of the west including the very conservative country of USA) have against sex? It's so weird.

Apple and Snow Leopard take-downs - just say no

F1reman
Go

Go reg!

fuck yeah!!!

Who rejected Google Voice on the iPhone?

F1reman
Jobs Horns

Criminals

One can tell Steve Jobs is back in town can't one.

The Apple response is careful not to incriminate whilst making every effort to obscure the truth. Call me naive but I find Apples behaviour, to a federal organisation no less, to be no less than appalling.

The bit where Apple go on about contacts privacy and iPhone user interface is bare faced lies. I currently sync my contacts with google via google's activesync mobile sync function and this functionality is accepted by iTunes.

As for the interface rubbish - just look at textPlus please. This app completely replaces the native SMS app. TextPlus apparently pays AT-T for text messages. This is perhaps why textPlus lives on in the Appstore but then again, Google Voice uses AT&T minutes, so what's the big deal?

Article spot on.

Nokia brandishes superfluous Booklet

F1reman
Pint

calm down

The article wasn't bile.

Bill IS a bit of a cynic but we all know by now that the manufacturers see the operators as their real customers and not the end-user. Bill Ray is simply reminding us of this fact.

I agree that Bill should have waited until he's played with the device (hey, maybe he has?!) before really going for it like he did at the end of the article, but the article is not a hardware review, was not intended to be and was only ever about 'how things really work' in the industry.

And anyway - I read the register BECAUSE of opinionated writers who aren't scared to bite the hand that feeds 'em.

More Bill please.

Although there's a whiff of bitterness in his writings I still like them.

MoD to bin F-35B navy jumpjets in favour of tailhook birds?

F1reman
Go

another great article

I always read about this kinda stuff in El Reg months before I see it in the popular press.

I read today an article on the bbc about a hutton commissioned report which apparently describes botched MoD spending on things like helicopters and fighter planes. Read about all that here yonks ago.

Thanks, always makes for very interesting reading tech site or not.

SpinVox offers pounds of own flesh to staff

F1reman

Darthree

Don't SpinVox have a deal with the 'Three' network?

iPhone makes eyes at T-Mobile and Orange

F1reman
Jobs Halo

**** da operators

It doesn't seem so long when certain operators were going to abandon Nokia for daring to try and put it's own music service on it's phones. Well as Bill points out just look at what Apple have done in this area.

By chance? I don't think so...they'd already done it with iTunes and their iPod; now they just had to sucker the operators in to allowing them to operate the same model but just over the operators airwaves.

Those ofcom golfing partners are going to wake up and smell the coffee too late, just like the music industry. The operators have been well and truly shafted; reduced to their greatest fear, to no more than a carrier. lol@operators.

Cheers Bill great article.

I wonder if in the future carriers will still be able sell value add services such as music, email, apps under their own brands but just on lower end handsets? Or whether they will simply become BT but smaller. BT but smaller me thinks.

Nokia N97

F1reman
Pint

resistive touchscreen oh dear

75% for a review that is basically 9 pages of diplomatic slagging off? Reading the review one would assume 50%, maybe 60%.

A family member works for an operator and they've had this phone for a while. I was really excited by the idea of it and the pre-release hype but said family member warned me off it, said it was the worst phone they'd played with (I think there's a full stop here) and sounded quite shocked that Nokia had even considered it for release nevermind actually started selling it.

The review is a little odd, coz a full day of battery life can be expected from an iphone and palm pre (apparently) and indeed many HTC models, if not more. iPhone costs just over £500 and N97 costs £499: is the difference significant? What does the N97 offer that the competition does not?

My N82 has a jack on the top of the phone. I think I'll go and buy the N97 coz it's got a jack on the top of the phone.

I'm sure you guys (elreg) have to try and be nice so that you'll still get invited to parties (now that apple refuse you entry) but that review, for what is generally considered to be a disaster of a phone, was toothless: give it the roasting it deserves.

Nokia will be around for ages since they sell all the low end low margin phones that no-one else produces anymore. they can handle bad reviews the little darlings.

I saw a video blog of a meeting between bloggers and Nokia, held in Finland, for the release of the N82. In it there was a british man who had been responsible for the design of the phone (those horrible keys). He reminded me of those people who are untalented and useless but are a bit mean and seem to float to the top in companies somehow. He really was an arsehole. With employees like him who needs enemies like Apple/Palm/HTC etc

Apple may be run by an arsehole marketing Team but at least they know how to market. Just look at the hype their company generates. We may hate them but they do things right. Andrew O himself said of the iPhone: "you can't keep a good product down..." maybe that should read you can't keep a good company down. although as a mac book user I do think windows 7 taskbar is far superior to the pointless dock. We;ll have to see if Snow leopard can match the Jesus Bar.

But I digress....

Anyone fancy a beer?

F1reman
FAIL

and it's even the same contract price as the iphone

oh and isn't £38 pm about the same as the iphone contract with o2?

Apple proves: It pays to be late

F1reman

Go El Reg - Down with Apple yeah!

Actually it does make a refreshing change that at least one online source is not willing to kowtow to Apple. I think it's quite funny that Register does not get invited to Apple hype events. At least I can trust them to be objective when it comes to Apple.

With regards to cameras. The iphone camera is rubbish for me and it's me that counts to me.

I don't know if it's is because of a lack of auto-stab, auto-focus, no flash, software or whatever. Fact is I try to take a photo at night forget it. And during the day the picture needs to be of a statue or it's blurred.

I accept that not everyone wants to take pictures of people, and for them I'm happy, but for the folks like me who like to take quick snaps of animate objects it's no good. 5 years ago fair enough. But now a days I don't see the excuse.

F1reman
Happy

you can't keep a good product down. GEM OS?

@ Andrew O

I hope they don't introduce a keyboard because in my view it would make the phone far too chunky.

What is it that you don't like about the software keyboard Andrew O?

@ Andrew Thomas and other non-believers

To be honest son I've never much liked my previous phones such as the N82, K750 and E70 because they always stood out a mile in my pocket. Such smart phones were really annoying for us blokes who wanted a decent phone but who don't condone the use of handbags. I tried a neck strap but just too chunky again.

my Iphone is slim. I'll repeat: SLIM. With a curved back. What this means is that it does not stick out so much as a phone half it's size in width and height but double it's depth.

@ Andrew O re E70.

Yep, I gave my E70 to my gf and do you know what? She fecking loves it. She's always texting and that fold out keyboard is ultimate for this girl. And it fits in her normal handbags.

@ GhilleDhu

@ Ted

@ Bad Beaver

Yep, the camera is woeful. For that reason alone I miss my N82. And my K750. No actually wait....the Apple is about as bad as the k750, which was amazing when it first came out...5 years ago!! Come on Apple, produce the goods on the camera hardware. Der.

It's not about megapixels Ted and no-one said it was. I've no image stabilisationa and there is tons of noise in a dark pub. So in a dark pub/club/bar/restaurant (which is where I tend to use camera phones) I get blue lines and a fuzzy image that needs a flash and image stab.

Then, in the park on Sunday, I have to get everyone to 'hold still' for 5 seconds. usually the 5th attempt comes out alright. And that's in bright sunlight. OK so the App "night camera" helps with these problems but please, the N82 kicked ass.

Guys, if you know of something to cancel out the noise and blur please let me know.

@ Jez Caudle

rofl

@ Andrew O

there's no point to an iphone nano because then the screen will be too small. Unless they do Tocco I suppose, which is a great little phone. Hmm. Maybe they will and then they satisfy the small phone addicts.

Interesting fact. iPhone came second to HTC Touch HD in battery life test on PC Pro tests. At least 10 smart phones tested so it seems iPhone battery life is actually better than most other smart phones. wierd.

For business users they need to compete with Blackberry and so until they introduce central control and market leading security features Apple are going to be left out in the cold.

@ Gene Feierstein

lol

The death of mobile innovation?

F1reman
Happy

Quite interesting

I think what is trying to be said is:

1) Because of one reason or another everyone bar apple are using/going to be using Qualcomm

2) Qualcomm is a plc and also not a very nice company because they care too much about their bottom line and their shareholders, who are institutional investors, don't care about anything other than the next big investment opportunity.

3) Because only qualcomm are in use innovation will be quashed and we as the consumer will suffer as a consequence

4) The only folks who don't use Qualcomm, Apple, are about to go in to administration

The apple mis-step was made in order to reinforce her article. i.e. if Apple are strong then Qualcomm maybe not such a big threat....but the Apple comment was unecessary and ironically, undermined the article.

Qualcomm not very nice company? No. Really? Name me a 'good' company. Define good and evil. Etc.

But the thrust of the article is good:

When AMD started ctaching up with Intel, Intel released multi core. If AMD had not got strong we'd still be with overheating Pentium 4', right? Possibly. Intel have a long road map but the long term view can be changed. Only perhaps 18 months is set in stone. Besides, most economists will argue that monopoly bad, competition good.

Apple plays catch-up with new iPhone features

F1reman
Jobs Halo

@ Bill Ray

FGS start getting your facts straight on the mobile industry and defrost on apple.