Posts by TangD 43 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Jan 2012
I wondered about the Porsche thing, it's hardly a mark of wealth. I bought an older one to potter around in on sunny days, cost considerably less than the Ford F150s that seem to ferry every man and his dog around here in TX. There are expensive Porsches but the base Carrera? We're not talking mid 6 figures income here are we?
I can't comment for everywhere but if he's targeting CIOs he might be out of luck. Here we are planing a very small targeted roll out of corporate devices to replace blackberry (as that time comes) and will support BYOD for users who are not critical (thing the regulated part of our industry and senior exec who also require regulator tracked access). Our IT group will NOT pick the next tablet/phone used in our business. We likely will pick the system that provides the dual personas and security/encryption but we will provide it on what ever device a critical mass of our employees need. Right now we are doing iOS (think the demographic that this was offered to initialy) but will likely support Android as the startups solve the security headaches and we can deploy the tech. We will support Windows 8 tablets if the demand is there but if HP want windows 8 tablets in our corporation (65k people worldwide) they have to sell to consumers not CIOs
I can't argue with your logic, you're right, horses for courses. I've never had an issue getting stuff on/off the device but I don't use it for much more than web, email, and games. It'll also become a toy for my infant when it's upgraded so not end of useful live as such, just moving down the hand-me-down chain
I don't *have* to replace it. I mean, the battery life is still more than enough, and it does everything it did when I bought it but there are new applications (games) coming out that take advantage of the newer hardware and don't run on the old stuff. I actually thought 3 years was about right to upgrade a consumer device like this that only costs a few hundred bucks. Long time ago I used to spend way more than that on desktop gaming hardware that again didn't *have* to be replaced but... I save my money elsewhere (e.g. my car is a 2004 model) so a few hundred bucks on a tablet every 3 years isn't really a big deal
As for saying it's an Apple tax, that seems a bit harsh given how some of their older kit on the phone side still works fine if you have more patience than I do (fine as in no worse than in the first place, ymmv on if you were happy with that or not). There are other similar products that due to lack of consumer OS upgrades feel far more like a tax don't you think?
Yea I was hoping for more. Hopefully there will be a new iPad and it will move the bar a bit. I couldn't justify the upgrade to the new iPad (from an original iPad) last time but said old device is now getting a bit long in the tooth. Still it'll need to be something real to persuade the wife that I need an upgdrade, technical fluff isn't going to cut it for that purpose even if it will be what drives the buying decision on my side.
The good news is you would have stuck with your stance regardless of what (cr)Apple had announced so it's no loss to them. My guess is they care what you think about as much as you care what they do. Big smiles all around! Quite why you're telling us I have no idea but I am non the less fascinated enough to comment on your comment.
There are plenty of technologies to get around this, (dual persona/boot, non local storage, in app remote wipe/encryption). We're not there yet but we are very close to having 'as good as a corporate device'. The issue we run into with our security teams is they want this to be fully secure not just as secure as our existing blackberry/laptop users. That seems unfair to the new tech.
We (Fin Services, over 60k people globaly) are experimenting with BYOD. Many solutions being tried including 'in a box' solutions with paralells that look to be about as secure as a corporate owned device but not as flexible as we would like, remote terminal solutions (we have VPN etc. in place and have been offering this work from home type service for years). Bring your own laptop is great when you travel as you only have to take one. Agree on the tablet not good for this front, but there are some very interesting technologies that we are seeing starting to flow through the pipeline that massively improve the user experience. To be honest the UX part is going to be harder to crack than the security on the tablet/phone. People are less patient so you really need to think differently.
There are a lot of issues, like, if I brick *MY* machine is there a loaner I can get, who pays, do I get an allowance, what about tech support etc etc. But we are experimenting and looking for technologies that can smooth the path
"BYOD has to be tailor made for each company"
Where I come from that's what we call an opportunity. There was a time when remote access was custom built, apps where etc etc. Find a way to provide an off the shelf solution, even better if you can partner with a 'consultancy' to provide the deployment and you'll have a business.
"I cannot think of many examples where the benefits outweigh the risks", I disagree but we have different frames of reference. In our firm we see lots of advantages and are working to reduce the risks. New ideas to utilize the tech keep coming out and further tiping the do it side of the scales
There is a lot of do it now business, and it can be a good way to attract the right talent, plus retain people as you make their work environment more flexible. Of course ymmv and depends on industry and employee
Change scares people I guess. BYOD bring a whole raft of problems, yep. But we've dealt with end of the world scenarios before (Laptops, Blackberries, remote working)...
There are good solutions coming through (Good is a solution for some small part, I'm not sure it's a good solution but there we go) but disruptive technologies are coming through that will help to fix some of the security issues. These range from MDM on corporate owned devices for high security users through to dual persona/MAM for personal lower security users. The world is changing, we see email dieing, we have clients demanding mobile access. This stuff is NOT harder than what we have faced before, but it will be much more publicly visible if you fail, think symetrical risks of reputation damage but doing it but getting it wrong/not doing it at all.
Consumerization IS going to drive corporate going forwards, it is going to be hard to manage, there are new risks, lets stop digging in our heels and figure out how to fix it. It's what we get paid for.
"The along comes Apple, who invented absolutely nothing fundamental to the development of mobile phones as phones"...
Yes, which is why the iPhone was a short lived product that died out quickly wasting the R&D investment that had been made in the OS and user interface. The lack of consumer interest reflected how little had changed from devices existing at the time that tried to combine mobile voice communications with other functions. The clearest example of Apple's complete failure to move the market is how devices currently in the market could be more easily mistaken for a clam shell phone than an iPhone
What?
I almost saw your logic then you snuffed it out with a bit of a rant at the end. You are right, Apple don't *have* to make phones. However if they choose to make phones, then to help stop the market being a completely incompatible mess of multiple systems we have standards (let's pretended my current Americas based location doesn't exist for a moment). Now to help consumers, encourage competition and all that the patents included in said standards are available on FRAND terms. This is good for the patent holder (every phone maker has to pay you either in cash or kind) and good for the market as lots of people can make phones knowing they can get all the tech they need at a reasonable and non discriminatory cost (yay innovation).
By your own statement rounded corners are somewhat less important, so should be no big deal to design something that has a different look, feel, gui etc. Heck even MS has come up with something that no one in their right mind would confuse for existing technologies, and I suspect they have patents for *their* new look and feel. If you don't like the patents Apple has been granted and feel they were ripped off from elsewhere then write to the relevant patent authorities in each territory that all made the same mistake, that is a different argument and has very little to do with Apple other than, they play the game well.
So in short...
Patent required for standard -> User must pay but on FRAND terms -> What Samsung has, Apple must use AND must pay but can say terms were not FRAND and ask courts for relief
Patent not required for standard -> You don't need to use it, but if you do you can be charged what ever the holder can negotiate for it -> What Apple has, Samsung must pay, or stop using and pay damages. Only course of relief would be proving you're not using them or getting the patents invalidated.
(I'm sure both companies hold essential and non essential)
See?
Not sure that a me too Android product is the way to go, there are already a lot of good products in the space you would have to compete with. I mean it is a bit of a hail Mary but if Windows 8 works out for them (and it may) then Nokia might be back in business. The Android hardware business is not as I understand it a great way to make money right now if you are not already a strong participant.
The real question for me is can they make enough money from it to make the share price improve, given where it is now it could be a bargain, to do that they need to figure out who their customers really are and start selling to them. I suspect that Android customers are primarily just that and not <insert hardware manufactures> customers, though I could be wrong.
Unfortunately these things are almost never black and white. We would all be better off if that were the case, but often it hinges on a who said what and when, with 2 different accounts and little in the way of real evidence. You are of course right that if someone changes their mind and says stop then it means stop. They can also change their mind and say no condom? Oh ok let's go anyway. As far as I can see there was no complaint at the time, no attempt to stop things there and then or to call the police. At a later date when there seems to be possible other motives suddenly this comes to light.
The plod, one assumes, have a duty to investigate such a complaint and it seems the prosecutor spoke to JA but then refused all other avenues to ascertain if there was sufficient evidence to proceed or likelihood of getting a conviction. Unless there is something specific we are not being told there doesn't seem to be any realistic chance of a conviction here so not sure why everyone's time is being wasted. A balancing of rights for the accuser and accused might help in making JA (and many others) accused of this sort of crime more likely to go through a process that will, at best, show that there is not enough evidence to make them guilty, rather than showing them to be innocent. Right now even if innocent you're looking at arrest and possible charges creating a permanent record which will affect things like visa applications and jobs requiring any form of clearance. If you're unlucky enough to be found guilty in the popularity parade that such a trial really is then you're in even more trouble. If you're guilty you will get everything you deserve but right now because of the general view on sex crimes we should tread much more carefully around who we accuse and what minimum standard of evidence is required to move forwards with even an arrest.
Either way I think triggering a diplomatic incident is pretty dumb but it would all be for the good if it could be a catalyst for more rational thinking about sex crimes, likelihood of conviction and realistic compensation for the reputational damage done by false accusations. Perhaps some real thinking about how we purge false allegations and investigate/punish those who make them?
FYI, 2 sources of smoke does not a fire make.
Yes, you're a useful idiot. Pretty vile and disgusting if it was what he was being accused of. But it isn't. You see, she did give consent, and then found out that JA is not such a nice bloke...
To compare that to non consensual sex is quite frankly abhorrent to both those who really have been assaulted and those who have been falsely accused (especially in light of the fact there will never be any justice for them, anonymity for life for the liar, no smoke without fire for the innocent).
Sexual assault allegations are the new witch trials, there have been one too many high profile cases where plod has been only too happy to try to prove how much they care about the 'victim' without ensuring that she rot in jail when the truth comes out. This is not helped by idiots like yourself who see 'sex crime' and know right away that means guilty.
That said, avoiding due process of law through hiding in an embassy is not really a good approach for anyone, sets a bad precedent and is more about playing politics than anything else.
I've given up with the stealers as well, Audi told me the TT needed a new computer at a fitted cost of $2k, I thought at that price I'd get a second opinion and the very nice man who is now looks after my cars diagnosed a faulty connection that made it look to the automated test kit that the computer was shot. Repair cost of $500 if I wanted it done nicely with the new part from audi or $130 if he replaced the cable and put it back in himself. Given it was a 10 year old car repair cost of $130 plus a couple of packs of beer as a little thank you
Question for those who might know this, to work at the stealers do you need to know ANYTHING about the car or is the ability to plug in the self diagnosis kit enough? Are there skilled people back there that are not allowed to actually check and diagnose problems or do they just not care anymore?
Fragmentation is always going to be more of a problem in the mobile space due to limitations (power, processor speed etc.) though I suspect it will become less of an issue over time if the variances can be papered over, see Windows did do something for you. Remember how much of a problem it used to be in PCs (those games with CGA, EGA, VGA, MCGA choices and running separate files to configure your Adlib/Sound Blaster/Sound Blaster Pro/Roland/Random combination and even then it might not work if you didn't have different EMM profiles setup and a mouse/no mouse config.sys). if you have enough horse power to paper over the hardware cracks with software it'll be fine.
That said I don't think fragmentation is killing Android right now, there are some really good devices starting to come out as long as you're careful and remember you tend to get what you pay for. (Disclaimer, yes I'm still locked into the Apple store and not terribly unhappy).
I don't dislike free to play in principle, sometimes it works. I can see 3 basic models and like each one to a different level
i) 'Shareware' - Download game, get maybe a couple of levels, if you like it you buy the game. I'm fine with this, as long as I trust the account provider to stay in business (Apple, Steam etc.) then this is just like retail with try before you buy
ii) Game expansions - Some items are hard or impossible to get (extra maps, better weapons, character costumes...). If you buy them they stay in the game for ever (again if your account manager stays in business). This sort of 'DLC' is fine with me, I can choose to earn or buy and as I put a value on my time I'll often buy if it makes the game better.
iii) Spend real currency in the game - This is the bad one for me. There is no replay value, and it is a bottomless pit. If I buy that shiney virtual currency, then spend it I can't replay the game and the developer is incented to spend time on making the game as dull and boring as possible to force you to buy currency. This is a bad model for games, and these are the in game purchase I just never make.
I'll go for (i) or (ii), they seem like reasonable business models to me. (iii) just isn't for me, I'll go back to spending money in the pub as I never get that back either but gaming is supposedly my cheap night in.
Couldn't have put it any better if I tried. A bigger question is will any home users bite...? As an aside, the tail is starting to wag the dog a bit in this enterprise (60k people globally) and if our incoming/incumbent staff get used to it at home they'll be even more annoyed with the systems. BYO is already on the table...
While I agree that their patent lawyering is needless I suspect 'refuses to innovate' is at best a stretch. They did create the iPhone, it was revolutionary, everyone else is now playing me too with it. As for tablets well they did exist before but honestly, do you know anyone that had one? I suspect all the iPhone/iPad look-a-likes (some of which have leap frogged the originals in terms of capability) are the reason for all the nastiness.
Yes because one stock moving against you a bad portfolio makes... The good news is you can ignore equity investments and make loads of money in a savings account. Oh wait what's that, interest rates are below inflation in many contries and that's before the likely fiat devaluations? Erm, well it must be much less of a gamble to just buy gold or something?
There will always be risks with investments, try not to jump on the me too IPOs like this one and diversify and you'll be fine. Also don't sell low/buy high, if you can't bare to see your current price, don't look. Plan ahead, enough liquid assets to cover you in the down periods etc etc. The world isn't out to get you, you're just doing it to yourself. Just sayin.
That could be an inspired move, as the currency falls, so will go cost of production and any local monies borrowed. Any long term supply contracts under local law that are redenominated will also drop in cost, or generate get out penalties if they buyer wrote them properly. Oddly in this scenario the real risk is they DON'T go bankrupt and you get stuck with higher taxes, austerity and social unrest
"This is a remarkable and completely unexpected discovery...". So, you weren't trying for it? Or you just expected to fail and were just spending a research grant? Or you just came across this by accident while you were doing something unrelated with gama rays, complex lenses etc.
Just wondering
Given the lack of even basic driving skill displayed here (CT) on a daily basis I'm quite keen to see these become mandatory. Or at least maybe they could automatically report other drivers who do stupid f*cking things like tail gating and cutting others off. Except of course if they were all reported and acted on the courts would fail to meet the demand and no 18 wheelers would ever enter CT again for fear of being impounded.
Yes that's how it works. You reduce the amount you're willing to pay for contractors, they (and the companies that support them) either decline to work for you at the new rate or they also cut costs by reducing overhead or the rates they pay. No need to take a loss. If it's profitable for others then there are efficencies to be found (maybe closing the local office). If no one can make a profit at that level then you end up with no takers and have to raise your rates. Supply and demand, we let the market set the rate and push for it to be as low as possible while still getting the people we need.
Now if you tell me we loose the best people because they can get higher rates elsewhere I can't argue with you as I've observed it, but apparently we don't need the best as senior management insist on paying for good enough.
Unfortunately it's not *just* the GOP voters that are stupid. For those of you that don't live in the good old US of A (this is a British rag after all) elections here work roughly like this. A large proportion of Democratic voters wouldn't vote for the GOP candidate regardless of his or her policies even if the Democratic candidate popped in on election day and set fire to their dog. There is equal intransience on the GOP side such that extremely safe districts exist where the politicians are never held to account and so they do what they want, pandering to the extreme wings of the party, the party itself and their own benefit and mostly doing nothing for those of us that pay taxes. For goodness sakes take your head out of your arse and vote based on performance and proposed policy and not the colour of the lapel pin and then we might get something done every now and then.
I know this happens in the UK too but the polarization here is of idiotic proportions
Don't we already download tablet games? I mean I know they're smaller but some are several Gb and there is no physical media there (and I can't say I miss it). Prices of the games seem to come down over time, the games I paid $5 for 2 years ago are now available for $1 or even free, creating a route for those that currently save money buying second hand games. The only downside seems to be you can't recover your investment selling on second hand and you just factor that in when you buy the game. I don't sell my games on, I find the replay value is worth more to me than what I would get at Game. Having been forced into Steam for Oblivion I do miss the boxes and the history but I loved being able to just download it so I doubt I'd want to go back.
;-)
Not celebrating, just saying. I would move but I'd need a good reason. If you buy a lot of software that'll be an issue on what ever platform you start on. If you don't buy stuff then you're not really the target audience for apple. If you think that's a fortune on media and software over 2 years you've clearly never owned a games console (another lock in!). I have a lot of Windows software too, it locks me into that platform. I have a mac but very little software on it so no lock in (I mostly buy games, so shoot me).
What I said was that for my situation iPad 3 makes sense and none of the reasons thrown by the OP would be a reason for an existing Apple customer to move. For an Andriod user or non aligned customer or someone who doesn't spend much at Apple's stores the same points MAY give a completely different decision. I don't know, I'm not in that situation. I pay my Apple tax as I no longer have the time to roll my own (I did that for years) and now earn enough that the time Apple's model gives me back is worth the money to me.
All that said my original comment stands. I'm still a techie at heart and if there are features I'm not aware of that would make it worth the switch I'd love to hear because it would influence my decision on the platform I select for the next coulpe of years
Or it might be that we are locked in to an extent, we bought when Apple came up with a tablet people could actually use rather than waiting for everyone else to scramble to make me too products. I probably have over $300 worth of software (at original purchase price, I'm sure a lot has been discounted now) on my device, plus maybe another $200 of TV shows, music etc. I could probably fight to transfer the media to another tablet but seriously, why would I bother? Right now this shares between my iPad and my wife's iPhone seamlessly, after I buy a new device it'll continue to share between those 2 as long as the new device plays nicely. Yes I know that means I'm caught in Apples net but it's not so bad as it all works. Anyway, let's look at your points as they are.
The cost difference of the device depreciated over the amount of time I've had the 1st generation one it is negligible, I mean what are we talking here, less than $10 a month, less than $5 (I don't know what an equivalent transformer costs)? If that's an issue for you then you probably should save money for food not tablets. What about resale value, are people lining up for second hand transformers (again I don't know the answer, just asking)?
Performance? Really? You've done a side by side comparison of real world application performance, with the new iPad? That's awesome. Or is this about on paper specifications that no one in the general population (you know the big group where products make most money) cares about. I very much doubt there is a significant performance difference in actual use cases that I'm likely to come across. If I'm wrong then I'm sure that will come out in the next month which will be before I 'upgrade'.
Weight and thickness, again I'm in awe that you think you'll detect this in use, but then I'm still using an iPad 1 so I suspect this isn't going to be an issue for me. I'll give you that the noise Apple made about thin and light last time sets them up for this but that's something for you to direct to Apple (I'm sure they'll take your feedback into account) not the owners of the devices. Honestly, we don't care, that's not why we buy them.
Capacity... erm? I've not filled the 64Gb I've got but then I tend not to keep every bit of media I've ever owned on my tablet. How much extra do you have or is this a usual complaint about not being able to plug in extra storage? Do you not have access to the could where you are? What part of history are you living in? I can already plug in the SD card from my camera or the camera directly by USB (yes I had to buy a cable but I already own it so money already sunk again) which is about the only use case I can think of where I'd need external storage that doesn't come via the network.
OS... Well that's a bit subjective. I'll give you that recent iOS releases seem to have been buggy and rushed out the door but the interface is what I'm used to using. I've used Android, it's fine but I find it harder to use due to lack of familiarity. Applications seem to run slower on it as well but that might be confirmation bias on my part, bad application coding or just the device I was using (no standardization y'see). Again I'm not going to swap to something that is as good or just a little bit better, it would need to do something really interesting to make the leap worthwhile.
I'm afraid you're going to have to significantly expand your etc, etc to show me the use case that would make me think that I should move away from Apple. I would move with a compelling reason that was enough to overcome the inertia of existing software and familiarity but nothing you've presented here gives me that. I suspect that you're not in Apples target market (normal non techie consumers with money to spend regularly driving their 30% store cut) hence this won't appeal to you. If I'm wrong appologies for the mischaracterization.
Oh and tethering, so I'd need to get another device to carry around with me? Right now I only need my employer supplied blackberry and my personal iPad. Why on earth would I want to unintegrate something as seamless as a tablet or start paying monthly phone charges to carry another phone?
I'd love to see Android manufactures step up their game, competition drives innovation. I'd be very excited about the device that overcame the ownership inertia as that would be the kind of step change that made me not upgrade my existing laptop and get a tablet 2 years ago, but honestly right now the only differentiating factors I see are a mines bigger than yours in areas where I don't need more :-(
Anyway, let me know if I've missed something important it's not too late to stop me making what you clearly consider to be a serious purchasing mistake, it's advice I'd actualy greatfuly take
It's not Apple, it's the consumer. Time after time we see that people would rather buy a crap product for 90% of the price rather than pay extra for a good one. We get this sort of twaddle when ever protectionist tarrifs come up. The tarrif (in this case paying more to workers) gets passed onto the consumer. If the consumer was willing to pay it companies would already be manufacturing localy and not dealing with transportation costs, unstable governments (lets give congress the benefit of the doubt for now) etc. But they are not. Fix the consumer and the companies will follow. As long as we collectively don't care where our cheap widget came from..
That they don't allow Android on Good. We don't. Where I work if you have a blackberry you can get rid of it and instead be allowed to access your stuff via Good. At your own cost, no more subsidies, so it saves a lot of money. Android honestly is not ready for the big time and good can't change the fact that it's not secure enough as a platform for us (yet?). Not my opinion but that of our security team who apparently have made a career of such stuff.
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