Posts by PaulR79 699 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Aug 2009
I came here to post but practically all that I was going to say has been covered. One thing I didn't notice in my skimming over comments is how similar call centre work is to prison already. You work in a small space for a large part of the day doing very little, helping nobody and for very little pay. The only difference I can see is going home at the end of the day versus still being in that small space.
They may be having trouble in terms of revenue and customers to a degree but this is a very big trump card. No other company currently offers anything like it. Google may push out updates to the Nexus line for a while but as we saw with the Galaxy Nexus it doesn't always work out as long. This may only be a US initiative for now but I can easily see it being pushed to other markets.
Despite being an HTC fan I've been seriously looking around competitor products for my next phone mainly because of the updates. After failures to deliver an ICS update to my Desire HD and then only offering one major update to the One X I was ready to throw in the towel and go elsewhere. I may still do it depending on what's released but if this goes worldwide I will have to carefully consider all options.
I'm struggling to see any real benefit of the S5 over the S4 which itself wasn't a massive leap over the S3 and so on. Incremental upgrades are fine if it's a six month refresh but not for your new flagship. Are Samsung starting to lose their way? The back of the phone reminds me, and others, of the first Nexus 7. I didn't like it on that and tolerated it for the device at the price it was available but this is supposed to be a premium product.
I'm going to seriously look at the Z2 as well but I'm very curious to see what HTC pull out in March. The USA only (currently) 2 year update promise would be a massive pull for potential buyers if they could just get a removable battery in there and SD card to shut up those that care about such things.
Phone manufacturers are stuck in the belief that the trend is for thinner devices and that people would rather have a thinner phone than one that's a bit thicker with a larger battery. Slowly, very slowly, they're starting to realise this is wrong.
All of the flagship phones around currently have batteries above a 2000mAh rating. That would be fantastic if phone technology stood still but it doesn't so it still seems lacking. For the current crop of SoCs used 2500 - 2800mAh feels just about adequate.
"A somewhat poor quote"
It's a quote from arguably the best of the Star Trek movies with the original series crew and you call it "a somewhat poor quote"? Books may be popular but I guarantee you (internet guarantee!) that more people have seen the movie referenced than have read the book you're talking about.
The most distressing (from a WP8 owner's point of view) thing is that WP8 is really not that bad. I've likened it a lot to early Android but with more polish in some areas. Unfortunately Microsoft dropped the ball in a massive way by updating at such a slow pace. They needed to come out with WP8 and then aggressively update it so it was at a similar state to both Android and iOS within the first 12 months. That might sound too fast but they've already had a year with their other failure - WP7.
The notification issue is a massive missing step but overall there are a lot of minor niggles that really make using it a pain. I've tried many times to like it because I have a really nice looking phone but when I feel like I'm fighting the phone to do what I want it's more trouble than it's worth. The biggest annoyance for me continues to be the awful keyboard. If I press "i" as a first letter then both Android and iOS offer the word "I" as a suggestion first but WP8 has it a scrolling bar away. It doesn't learn at all and sometimes it will offer the correct word but without bold meaning you have to tap it instead of just pressing space to continue. It really feels like a kid at school scared to do anything without asking the teacher first.
Telcos crapping in their pants? I highly doubt it. To get any of these you still need a data plan of some sort or permanent access to WiFi and you have to be sure that the person you want to talk to has the same. The majority still charge outrageous amounts for data and unless (until?) something like WhatsCrap and data plans are part of every single phone sold they will never replace the utility of SMS.
SMS - they may be short, they may be relatively useless for expressing yourself but they're still part of practically every mobile phone sold on the planet. Suddenly 310 million users doesn't seem that many.
They blew $1 billion on an advertising campaign with Robert Downey Jr. and I can count on one hand the number of times I saw anything to do with either him or the HTC One on TV. That number is actually zero.
They have to start focussing on one thing, any one thing, and push that hard. Even with the relative success of the One they're second guessing themselves when they have to keep on that track. I don't mean ignore all markets in favour of it but keep pushing the premium phones and eventually people will see that the likes of the Galaxy line are awful quality and maybe switch. If they would consider offering handsets with stock Android in place of Sense I imagine a lot more would look at their phones.
Even as a fan of HTC I'm having a very hard time considering them for my next phone. They just seem to have a giant bowl of bad ideas that they keep going back to like a comfort eater with a bowl of popcorn.
It was hardly a new type of game to begin with. I remember a very simple helicopter game where you had to hold the mouse button down to keep it going up and let go for it to go down while avoiding obstacles and the terrain. Is this identical to that helicopter game? No but it's close enough. If it's ok for him then why is it not ok for others?
"which is exactly what the mobile phone operators - who are looking for a share of transaction revenue - fear will happen."
This is something that may use a small element of a mobile phone and the networks think they deserve a share of all revenue. Why am I not surprised? Oh but it uses their data network perhaps for a few seconds and that costs them money... which you've already paid for with your monthly fees / PAYG allowance.
Am I the only one tired of network operators trying to expand their greed by any means necessary? First they rip everyone off with the extortionate price of text messages and when those start to be bundled in the thousands they move on to charging extortionate rates for data. When that fails they'll use something else but in the meantime anything that mentions "mobile phone" (or cell phone if you prefer) and "money" in the same sentence has them looking feverishly on with ideas of how they can grab a slice of something for doing nothing. Or in this case a slice for trying to force their preferred way which guarantees them income for doing nothing.
"We believe that enterprises operating long-standing business models, subject to established international tax rules, should not become subject to altered rules on the basis that they have adopted more efficient means of operation."
Translation - we found these loopholes fair and square! You can't change the law to close them because it'd mean we would have to pay a lot more tax. Since we found this loophole in the law that wasn't intended to be used this way we deserve to keep it for being devious enough in exploiting it massively.
I have the responsibility for advising my family on all things technology related. Luckily they trust me and would take my word over a sales rep with £££ signs in his eyes. It does, however, mean that I have to stay up to date on things myself but that's ok as I do it anyway. I really don't know if people like your aunt are believing what they're told to justify the outlay. Nobody likes to be told they've been fleeced.
When (hah) all broadcasts are 1080p with a smattering of 4k I'll consider a 4k set, no sooner. Until then I see little point in anything beyond 1080p with most HD channels only doing 720p or 1080i at best. As others Fuzz said above me it just seems like a way to try and sell more TVs to those that don't need them.
Quite. I'm sure they'd much rather be investigated by someone who only looks at what they're willing to have seen and paid as much as their cheap labour building iCrap. Unfortunately for you, Apple, this guy seems to be doing his job as fully as he can. The more you try to prevent him looking into things the longer it will take him and the more it will cost you in the long run. All the crying in the world won't do you any good. You were found guilty and now you're complaining that the punishment is too harsh.
The main use of nearly all TVs is still broadcast TV (case study of myself). How many of those channels broadcast HD? Not many and those that do are, from what I can tell, 720P or 1080i at best. There is very little point in 4k for the foreseeable future beyond selling people something they don't need. I... oh, carry on.
Are Samsung just waiting for a sufficient Apple rumour to decide what they build next? First the awful, awful Galaxy Gear and now this? Assuming Apple never makes a watch and larger tablet I can see a lot of people laughing at how they can bait Samsung into building stupid devices. Coming soon from Samsung, a device that will change your future.... just as soon as there's a strong enough rumour Apple will build one.
Disclaimer: I detest Apple but Samsung are just making this so obvious now that they don't want to be second to the market and are jumping on strong rumours to avoid it happening.
Those slipped my mind but given they're made by Google owned Motorola I think you can almost throw them in with the Nexus line. It sums up what I was getting at though. Very few devices outside of the Nexus line currently have 4.4 available and it felt like a cheap shot.
They gave the timeframe for 4.4 on the HTC One and they're sticking to it. They gave dates for the Developer Edition and Google Play Edition and stuck to those so calling it out as though it's lagging behind on 4.4 seems harsh. In fact they're pushing harder than they ever have to update 2013 devices to 4.4 and while I don't own one it's encouraging to see them finally tackle the updates faster. Unfortunately as an owner of the 2012 flagship One X I'm not likely to even see 4.3 and that still saddens me.
Conclusion? I'm all for calling them out on abandoning phones too soon or lagging behind on updates but in this instance it isn't justified. What phones other than the Nexus 4 and Nexus 5 have 4.4 currently? (Rhetorical question)
"Cyanogenmod is a threat to their Android business model, because makes it easier for OEMs/carriers/users to rid themselves of the Google layered software that helps Google make money off Android."
It's no more a threat than Samsung with Touchwiz or HTC with Sense. Both still offer Android and access to all of Google's services which bring in revenue for Google. To get certified I'm pretty sure that CyanogenMod had to remove root as a standard option so in effect they're just another Android version with a few customisations. Frankly I don't see Google caring at all unless / until they partner with someone like Samsung or a major carrier *and* start developing their own major apps like Maps etc to compete.
"Don't ship it with GAPPs, and problem solved! To which Cyanogen to my knowledge has never shipped officially with any GAPPs ever..."
Your knowledge doesn't stretch very far in this instance. It used to always ship with GApps bundled and that's why they got the cease and desist letter in 2009.
@theodore Chairo here has already answered pretty much what I would have answered. I take the app type into consideration when I see the permissions and if it's extreme then it doesn't get installed, simple as that. Some apps that add extra permissions will explain why the new permissions are needed and again, if I agree that it's necessary and don't mind I'll allow it. If I don't agree then I either stay on the current version or uninstall if it requires the latest version.
Examples? A camera app will obviously need access to the camera and storage but it might also have an account permission. First glance you might wonder why but if it integrates with a service then that's easy to understand. However, if it asks for permission to send email without my permission it gets removed. Yes that permission actually exists and showed up in a recent app updates for something, Blipar I think it was.
It's probably an IT / cautious person thing to do but I check all permissions for apps before downloading them even when they're on the Play Store. If I'm downloading from somewhere else I'm even more careful to check into it first. Sadly it seems I'm in the minority with a lot of people just blindly installing apps from anywhere and ignoring the very clear warning about installing apps from unknown sources.
I seem to remember very harsh penalties in GT5. In fact when you pull off that perfect late braking move (not the bounce off to slow down braking) the AI dumbly turns into you and you get the penalty meaning you miss the Bronze / Silver / Gold trophy you were aiming for with that move.
I've seen all of the 2012 One series mentioned as being banned too. That's the One X, One S and One V. That isn't a massive loss considering the One V and One S were already left behind and the One X has likely received its final update with 4.2.2 a while back. Still, a ban on flagship models and lower tier models for last year and this year is pretty far reaching. I own both the One X and the 8X and both are solid phones that really deserved to do better, especially the 8X. If only I could install Android on it I'd be over the moon..
Incorrect, at least officially. The reasoning given was manufacturers releasing great devices with limited space for apps and such. The biggest and most popular example I can think of here is the HTC Desire which lacked storage for apps and even updates. Having internal only means the phones has access to one pool of storage.
The point this stops making sense is when you remember they have most input on Nexus devices whereas third party manufacturers have avoided the earlier mistakes largely. I still have suspicions that there is some licensing issue with MS and their various FAT crap.
I know there are plenty that want removable storage but I'm not one of them. I could probably live with 8GB if that was 8GB free and not 8GB total with about 5 - 5.5GB free. I'm sure it's easier and cheaper to just do 8, 16, 32GB runs but if you're going to be taking up 2GB+ for OS, apps and updates then you really need to start making it 16GB minimum if you can't have 8GB free any other way.
I don't play a lot of games and I rarely listen to music but I've run into a lot of "insufficient space" messages on my 8GB Nexus 4. What uses all my space? For the most part it's apps, app data, some music (<1GB) and photos. It adds up fast and surprised me when I got those messages. The other surprise was that Google makes the phone reserve 500MB for cache purposes that you can't use which I suppose it smart but the phone still shows, for example, 574MB and you can't only use about 70MB of that.
They're likely to revert to the old attempt at shaming people by making it a case of "phone us if you want to enable access to porn". If that is how they do it then personally I will probably phone up and say "yes I'd like the porn turned on thanks" to see who ends up feeling more embarassed. I'm sure we'll also end up with potential future abuses of this when someone on the list of porn users is found guilty of a crime.
I can see the headlines now.
"Man found guilty of murder also played violent video games and viewed porn!"
I take it you missed the part where I was clearly not talking about market share? Samsung may have the market in terms of sales but their products are very lacklustre in general. Samsung compete on pure numbers and volume of products with Apple, HTC compete on the design front. Even if you ignore that it makes little sense to single out some for praise and not others.
I like Android, I like Google but this prick is an arrogant fool. Saying Samsung can compete with Apple and leaving out HTC is stupid. Samsung may have a bigger marketing budget but their nearly blanket use of creaky plastic enclosures leaves a lot to be desired. Their attempt to show a different material with that awful faux leather on the back of the Note 3.. ugh...
I should note that I also like HTC but I'm not blind to their failings. Design, however, is not one of them and that is what Apple pride themselves on.
I've felt this way since the XBrick introduced them to games en masse. Why does every single fscking game have to have achievements?! Are people so starved of attention and desperate for praise that they need achievements for doing anything? What happened to playing the game and enjoying it without some seemingly endless quest for more achievements?
Achievement unlocked - Apathy!
Steam pauses the download for good reason. If you have a fast connection and a slow drive (5400rpm) it is painful. I can download at close to 8MB/s from my VM connection and that's pretty much 100% disk activity. I didn't realise how bad it would be until I tried to do, well, anything. If you have a faster drive you can force it to resume the downloads while you're playing. I always wondered why it paused downloads before I got this laptop..
Not that I imagine many / anyone will care but the laptop itself is a very good spec but has a 1TB drive which is on the budget / slow side.
I've read elsewhere about viewing angles being poor but it sounds like a pretty nasty issue given how good everything else is and that's a shame. I was considering this as a potential upgrade option but as I have about 4 months left I think given the downsides I can wait.
PhotoSphere is limited to Nexus devices and unless / until Google announce it being available to all I don't see the point of mentioning it in phone reviews. I've owned a Nexus 4 nearly a year and I haven't used it once.
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