Posts by Toby 10

Exec responsible for Apple iOS map fiasco walks the plank

Re: Dear Apple, please also sack the following people...

I think you'll find that 1. and 6. have been taken care of last month.

Apple iPad Mini 8in tablet review

Re: glowing review ignoring reality

Apple hater plays the man not the ball. Business as usual.

Ignoring the difference in price for now (because if that was an issue, Apple wouldn't sell anything) and specs (but not performance, if it uses a 286sx16 for graphics but has smoother graphics than other tablets I don't care, if its performance is poor then that does matter), say why the tablet you own is better than the iPad mini you have tried using for a reasonable amount of time.

Come on boy, raise your game.

Fans' loyalty questioned as iPhone popularity plummets

And how does it compare to other brands?

It may be that Samsung have a higher rating or they may have a lower rating - this rating for Apple doesn't really say much other than giving the anti-apple hordes something to froth about (and the blackberry/Windows minority something to be jealous of).

Samsung ships two smartphones for every one Apple sells

Re: And...

Actually you're both wrong. If we're going to do the male every-analogy-is-a-car thing then Samsung make Fords, Peugeots etc, and Apple make VWs, BMWs etc.

There is a cross-over in price at the top end of Samsung and bottom end of Apple and they generally serve different purposes. Some people just want to get from A to B and occasionally stick a bean-can exhaust on the back, some people will pay more for a different experience.

When it comes to cars I buy Fords and Peugeots - driving is a functional thing for me. When it comes to tech I want productivity and Apple kit does that for me. In the same way that some people buy high-end Fords, some people buy high-end Samsungs and pay as much for their phones as people do for Apple phones.

Is there any chance we can one day draw the line under this pseudo-religious arguing and just move on beyond this playground crap?

Ooh, does this mean there's a new tall poppy?

Damn Samsung owners, let's be different from the herd and buy an iPhone.

Fanboi beats 'e-trespassing' rap after using GPS to find stolen iPad

I doubt a thief was that smart.

Anyone stupid enough to be a thief (there are far more financially rewarding ways to make money) is unlikely to have been smart enough to come up with that defence. I suspect a lawyer taking a punt on an idea.

Stephen Hawking to demonstrate speech via brain scan

Re: I wonder...

Don't make me make a web browser pun.

Cabinet Office moves step closer to killing Directgov

If there really is no CMS then, you're right, that is a problem. As for there being a lot of transactional websites, then that's a problem that I think most big organisations have and if the new website has to fall back to microsites to deal with them then that's a shame but a necessity - hopefully there are guidelines for how they should be integrated if there comes a time when a transactional website get updated.

At some point more transactions need to be done online - dealing with government workers in person or over the phone is a painful and slow process. If this is a step towards that then that's great.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think any new site is going to fix everything, but I'm also not in the doom and gloom camp (who, if they are bored, should find some more fodder at the new BBC Sport website).

Maybe it's a good start or maybe it will go nowhere. It's a beta, we don't know yet.

That's pretty good for a beta then

Still not sure how I feel about full page images. The National Maritime Museum use them too: http://www.rmg.co.uk/

It's not as if you can do redirects is it?

I'm sure they'll redirect everything rather than giving you a 404.

Can't believe that there are so many Luddites on a tech website

It's a website that will bring together a lot of the government websites under one well organised site rather than each department wandering off and doing their own incoherent thing. I really can't see what's wrong with that.

Maybe there is an understated reluctance to deal with new things from all net-savvy people - whenever Facebook changes similar comments pop up.

Use iBooks Author, only Apple can ever publish the result

This is a bit like the Kindle AZW format then is it not?

You create the content, format it for a particular market (Kindle or iBooks) and then sell it via that market.

No textbook publishing company (which I don't feel as inclined as others to feel so sorry for) is going to write a whole textbook in Apple's free tool - they're going to author everything elsewhere and then use the tool to format it for iBooks. When other tools catch up (epub 3) then they can reuse the content and format it for other markets.

CERN: 'New physics starts now'

The papers were going to be published anyway

The papers that show a suggestion of the Higgs boson were going to be published anyway even though they are less than 3 sigma. Nobody has said it's been detected - I'd have thought you, as a scientist would have noticed that - just that the range of energies where it could be have been narrowed and there are some interesting peaks in that area.

It's exciting not because it's been proven, but because it's looking very much like it will be by the end of next year when they have enough data to go beyond 3 sigma.

It's a narrative; the hunt is closing in and we'll probably find out for (near-)certain soon. I, for one, find this interesting.

Micron's glass memory monster chews up slowcoach flash

I assume it starts as all zeros.

So you write ones where necessary and then change all the spare 0's to 1's when you want to trash it.

Of course this makes the slightly crazy assumption that that is how it all works.

Apple cofounder Steve Jobs is dead at 56

I think you are lost

Unless you think that his liver transplant was homeopathic in some way. Or maybe that someone who spent so much of his life dealing with engineering and science would abandon that for a handful of herbs.

All WikiLeaks' secret US cables are on BitTorrent in full

The password was some sort of statement in itself

I forget what it was (look it up on the Guardian website) but if I were writing a book and was explicitly told that the password was a one-time only thing and the password itself had interest then putting it in the book wouldn't seem unreasonable.

The Guardian journalist was too trusting of Wikileaks though, I'd have double-checked that they weren't ever going to reuse the password but I'm an ex sysadmin and so I have that sort of paranoia.

Apple to release Mac OS X Lion on Wednesday

Re: iphone shmiphone

Not quite sure what that has to do with a desktop OS. But I suppose I should accuse you of being a hater-girl and try and tell you why you'd be happier with an iphone and then you could counter with something about how the millions of people who buy apple products are deluded sheep and I'll say something about how I'll never come to you for business advice then. We'll go round in circles getting lots of thumbs up and thumbs down and people will c&p our argument so that they can reuse it next time there's an Apple article on The Register to save themselves the typing.

Terrafugia flying car gets road-safety exemptions

I think an autogyro would work better.

Bit more complicated to fly but hey, a flying car isn't going to be a couple of extra hours with the driving instructor is it?

http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/wallis_nelly.php

iOS 5 closes Apple's infamous homescreen webapp gap

Infamous?

Did anyone actually notice? Has anyone had a particularly rough three months whilst this hasn't been rolled out?

No, iPhone location tracking isn't harmless and here's why

Then the apps have access to the file

If you jailbreak your phone then there is a fair chance that rogue apps can then get access to the data and transmit it back to their servers. That's assuming that jailbreaking roots the phone.

Not the best solution.

iPad 2: Apple forced to make carrier concessions

I'd think that Apple has some breathing space with 4G

It will take the networks some time to roll it out sufficiently that it makes a big difference.

I'm still wondering if pads/slates etc are going to be a long term prospect or if their lack of ability in content creation and lack of a fast keyboard is going to mean they fizzle out into the same sort of niche product that netbooks are now in.

Steve Jobs unveils 30% subs model for ... everything

Why bother?

As soon as there's an article on Apple you all dive in saying how they're evil and doomed no matter what the facts of the article are.

I'm neither a fanboy or a hatergirl and so I'm unwilling to debate with either polarised camp. It's like the Daily Mail of IT with everyone who doesn't have a rooted Android phone dismissed as a fanboy regardless of their argument.

Mac App Store: Developer godsend or Evil Empire?

Really?

Can you put a figure on how badly Apple sales are going to fall if they don't open up its platforms to competitors or lowers the 30% take? Being a doom predictor for Apple hasn't traditionally been a good position to hold except as a suffix to a haterboi comment. I'd quite like to come back in a year's time or so when you think mac sales have plummeted and ask you why you were so wrong because despite all the doom mongers Apple never seems to fail quite how they predict.

Nike and TomTom display watch with marathon capabilities

It is just a garmin forerunner replacement

Some competition with the Garmin Forerunners is welcome (some of their latest ones are a bit dodgy at times).

As for running with a phone app, it'd be okay for jogging but if you're running and you want to have a look at how far you've gone or how fast you're going you need a watch not something heavy that can't cope with rain, needs buttons pressing and dies after three or four hours GPS use.

How to stop Apple and Google's great web lockdown

Er hang on.

With respect to the claim that Apple are worried that HTML5 will threaten the objective-C apps on iOS devices, are you forgetting that for a long time (and to much wailing and gnashing of teeth by some) they only allowed and wanted people to use HTML5 to make apps?

They've not closed down the ability to do so as far as I know.

Paris, because I doubt she's very good at history either.

Apple preempts Win 7 with fresh iMacs, Macbooks

Why do the Windows fanboys read Apple articles?

I have two macs that work better for me than the linux and windows boxes I use at work. I don't quite know why but I don't comment on windows articles berating the windows fans for their odd choice of OS, maybe I'm too old to do that.

The macs I have are from 2005 and 2006 and it's only recently that I've decided that the G5 iMac may need an upgrade whereas I used to upgrade my windows boxes every six months in the vain hope that bursts of speed I'd get between disasters would average out as a reasonable experience.

The first gen macbook will keep me going for another year at least. The initial outlay is expensive but they last longer in a usable state than PCs that seem to start rotting the minute you get them home.

If Apple is beneath you or too reliable for you and just reading about macs winds you up enough to rant that they're not as cheap as your PC, then go and read about Windows 7 instead (and price up the hardware upgrades).