Posts by MrNed 66 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Jun 2014
But does anyone over there actually believe that an age verification block will somehow dissuade kids from viewing pornography?
What, other than the MPs? Nope - nobody. It's just another farce brought to you by UK PLC.
Anyway, minitrump looks like he's going to be the next PM, and he gives the distinct impression of being a complete and utter onanist, so don't expect to see this back before the loons' gallery anytime soon.
Oh, did Adobe put their prices up? Didn't notice cos I escaped when they first brought in their tax on designer-y types. Bit of a bumpy road at first, but when Serif released Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo the road smoothed out again (Affinity Publisher is imminent too). Reasonably priced pay-once license, regular updates and improvements, slick and fast to use. Not identical to their Adobe counterparts, but easily as good for most tasks, and better than Adobe at others. On the rare occasions that Affinity doesn't cut the mustard I've still got my old CS5.5 license that runs quite happily in a VM.
When I hear about the "Experience Cloud" and other such guff, I feel even happier about my choices.
And the list goes on - look at the price of the misnamed iMac Pro (misnamed because a computer that can't be simply or significantly upgraded is not "pro", no matter how much grunt it has). By the time you've specced a decent amount of RAM and added a practically-sized SSD you're spending more than £5K!!!
Then there's the new Mac Minis - a nice, albeit overdue, update to the line, but with a nasty hike in prices.
And what about the Mac Pro refresh they've been promising for a while now? They'll catch my attention with it for sure, but even if they return to a genuinely pro computer (see above) I'm anticipating a price tag that's beyond ridiculous.
I'm speaking as someone who has for many years been prepared to pay the Apple tax, but I look at the crazy prices they're charging now and wonder where I can turn when my current workhorses give up the ghost. Priced out by Apple, can't bare the thought of bending over for Windows, can't get the software I need nor the required hardware support on Linux.
Arse.
...but I'll wait for the iFixit breakdown
Yep - that's what I was thinking too. But I also took a look at it on Apple's site and, whilst it doesn't say-so categorically, it does show a series of images showing the bottom circular panel removed. These appear to show a standard, easily accessible SO-DIMM mounting, and an accessible SSD card.
Here's hoping...!
Annoyingly, Apple has removed the ability to download a version of High Sierra and Sierre from Mojave so I can't build a seperate partition with High Sierra on.
They've done this for years, and yes it's infuriating. The trick is to download each new version when it's released, and tuck it away somewhere for as-and-when you're ready to upgrade to it (not helpful in retrospect, of course!). Then, in a worst case scenario, you can always wipe the system drive and reinstall the OS of your (not Apple's) choice.
AFAIK, the OS downloads are keyed to your Apple ID, and so in theory should work on any Macs that are assigned to your Apple ID. However, this is only the case if you've owned the machine from new, and your Apple ID was the first one registered to it - to be on the safe side I tend to download the updaters to each of my macs.
Also in theory, downloading the installer should register the OS to your Apple account so that you can access it any time that you need to via the app store - in my experience this is a bit intermittent,,, perhaps you have to actually install the OS to register it to the account.
Of course, the best protection is to take an image of the system before updating the OS - SuperDuper is the tool you want for doing this (https://shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html)
Yep - you beat me to it. Taking a slowly-slowly approach is not gonna catchee-monkey for Apple. If they say the desktop is legacy then that's the final nail in the coffin of my 20+ years as a Mac user. I can't do what I do with a tablet, and Apple is now treating desktop as legacy.
I don't want a mobile OS on my desktop. I don't want everything sandboxed and locked down, forcing me to jump through hoops, or to use clumsy drag-and-drop procedures to try to move something I'm working on from one application to another - I'm quite happy opening files from the filesystem, and having full access to that filesystem is fundamental to the way a pro uses a computer.
I mean, iOS is fine on a phone or tablet, but I'm trying to get shit done here, not look at videos and read faecesbook threads.
There's no Macintosh hardware at present that's worth buying - it's all either utterly out-of-date, stupidly impractical, or inexcusably expensive (or any combination thereof). Now, the only thing that keeps me with Apple - macOS - is being killed in favour of a toytown OS.
What the hell is wrong with these people?
"Not sure what the bottleneck is that prevents Mojave working satisfactorily."
It's unlikely to be a bottleneck, and very likely to be an artifical line in the sand drawn by Apple. They'll have deemed that an 8-year-old machine is now vintage and so won't be supported in future OS upgrades. They want you to buy a new-shiny, with the implied threat of being pwned if you don't keep up-to-date with their relentless and tedious os updates.
Proof of the artificialness of the os-support cutoff? The last generation of 'proper' Mac Pros - you know, the ones in a proper case that could be upgraded and expanded... I.E. the ones that were a "pro" computer rather than a glorified dustbin - was the 5,1. It was still supported in 10.13 (not sure about this latest 10.14 - haven't tried). However the 5,1's predecessor, the 4,1, wasn't supported beyond 10.9 (or perhpas 10.10 - again, I haven't tried). But here's the rub: there was no difference betweent the 4,1 and the 5,1 beyond a firmware upgrade that changed the reported model number and enabled 6-core CPU support - this was demonstrated when that firmware upgrade escaped into the wild, and people patched their older 4,1s with it, thereby giving their mac pros (so far) an extra 4-5 years of supported life.
So, even if there exists a genuine reason why Mojave won't run on your 2010 iMac, it's unlikely to be anything that couldn't be addressed with a firmware patch. Not that Apple will release such a patch, of course - your new Mac awaits (not that they're got anything worth buying at the moment, IMO).
"Make a decent one, and I'll go buy one!"
Absolutely! The dual-core-only-ness of the Mac Mini line is crazy (IMO it's to stop people buying a mac mini and pairing it with the monitor(s) of their choice, rather than forking out for a large, bulky iMac whose lovely monitor will boost Apple's profits, not to mention easily outlast the computer itself).
I'd also add another requirement: Something that's a bit more sensibly priced - I mean, over £4k for an iMac Pro, and at least £3k for a stupid dusty-bin thing?! I may be one of the mugs who'll fork out extra for Apple stuff, but not that much extra!
It had a trackball where you might expect to find a scroll wheel
It wasn't a track ball as-such - it was a small rubber nipple (stop smirking at the back or we'll put it all away and get on with some written work) with some sort of sensor underneath, but I don't think it was a ball. They were very effective in-use... for the 2 weeks it took for the scroll nipple to die.
Having become used to the ability to side-scroll, though I borrowed one of their Magic Mouse things to try instead (a mouse whose entire surface was touch-sensitive). It quickly became apparent that they'd named it that way because you needed the dexterity and slight-of-hand of a magician to be able to hold and move the mouse without it registering numerous erroneous button clicks and scrolls. The only option was to hold it tentatively 'twixt thumb and little finger with the rest of your hand hovering above it in an RSI-inducing crab-like fashion.
I gave it back and got a Logitech - it must be 7 years old but it's still going strong.
Presumably there'll be those affected who have simply bought a new, external, keyboard. But have you seen Apple's current keyboard prices? Over £100!! For a keyboard!! Better than $700 to have one repaired, I suppose, but does this current crop of external keyboards also use the apparently feeble - yet seemingly astonishingly expensive - butterfly switches?
I'm a Mac user, and have a number of their 2010-ish-era keyboards that are fab: slim, responsive, reliable. These were sold at around £40 for a wired version, IIRC - a bit pricey, but not completely mad for a decent keyboard. But over £100?!! I'd expect the thing to type by itself for that money.
Next time I need a new Mac keyboard it will be a Macally. And until they come up with a professional computer to hang their "Pro" tagline on - you know, one that can be upgraded here-and-there - I won't be buying any more of those either.
I concur. The Affinity apps are brilliant - Designer especially. I stuck with CS5 when Adobe went subscription only, then went to Affinity when they came out. Haven't needed to open an Adobe app in ages, and don't miss their bloated bug-ridden wares in any way whatsoever.
Three statisticians go on a duck shoot. A bird goes up - the first statistician raises his gun and shoots, but alas the shot is 50cm too high and so he misses. The second statistician has a go, but he shoots 50cm too low and so also misses. The third statistician puts down his gun and says "we got it".
Indeed! Haven't you ever noticed the correlation between the smoking ban and the normalisation of gambling by allowing wall-to-wall TV advertising and online casinos and the like? Of course, govt. gets quite a healthy tax from each bet, and it won't give the addict cancer... may destroy their lives, but at least the NHS won't have to pick up the tab.
"Kickdown is great on a torque-convertor auto linked to a decent, torquey naturally-aspirated engine"
I can vouch for that: The only automatic I've ever owned or driven was an old Jag XJS that - for some reason - I convinced myself was worth buying. The automatic box was in fact excellent and very easy to control. It's kickdown was responsive to how you were driving, and really easy to control through the accelerator: Plant your foot down to overtake and the box would instantly react, dropping one or two cogs as appropriate, and then upshifting at suitably high-rev points. Then, once past the dawdler / lorry / whatever, a slight relaxation on the accelerator is all it would take for it to settle back to smooth low-rev cruising. It became very natural very quickly, and I never once missed having manual shift (although regularly missed having a reliable car!).
A non-techy friend asked me just the other day to install Firefox for him because he didn't like the Chrome browser that had been pre-installed on the 2nd hand machine he'd been given. Lo and behold, Chrome would not download the Firefox installer stub - said the downloader page was unavailable. Visiting the same link with IE showed that the page was working fine; Firefox was duly installed.
So are Google blocking access to rival browser's installers?
"any suggestions most welcome."
Isn't Lightroom still purchasable as a standalone pay-once license? If so then at least you're not gouged monthly, and once purchased the license remains valid no matter whether you continue to pay or not
There's Darktable - maybe you've tried it already. It's fiddlier than Lightroom and is a bit quirky, but has pretty-much the same toolset. Couldn't tell you how well it works with large catalogues, but it won't cost you anything other than time to find out cos it's open source. There're versions for Windows, Mac and Linux too.
Ah - the inevitable gouging-out of locked-in customers. I think we all saw that coming.
IMO Affinity Designer is considerably more powerful than Adobe Illustrator whilst being slicker and smoother in use; it is simply awesome for doing GUIs and screen designs too. It costs less than one month's Adobe CC tax.
Affinity Photo is also excellent and I have yet to discover anything it can't do that Photoshop can. Again, it's less than one month's Adobe tax.
Both Affinity products are available for MacOS and Windows. And both launch in seconds rather than minutes. No, I am not affiliated with Affinity in any way - I'm just an extremely satisfied user.
Let's see - what else has Adobe got and what could it be replaced with...
Premiere? Try FCP-X if you're on Mac, or DaVinci Resolve on Windows or Mac
After Effects? Trickier... try Apple Motion (not a full solution, but capable of most things), or DaVinci Fusion, which also runs on Linux
Dreamweaver? Komodo edit, Eclipse... many many many more!
Flash? Obsolete. HTML5 and JS will take care of that for you.
InDesign... hmm... come on Affinity - I've heard the rumours...
I "consciously decoupled" the moment they launched Creative Cloud. It was tough at first, but I'm on wide green uplands now! During a recent OS refresh I didn't even bother to reinstall my old Creative Suite license - I haven't needed to open an Adobe app in months.
Adobe chummed the waters with their Creative Cloud con, and sharks came. Now they're re-chumming the waters whilst surrounded by sharks, and those sharks are already fat from the last chumming. Adobe have not only lost their monopoly on creative design software, they also now have some very real and totally viable competition. And yet they choose to raise their prices by how much?
Don't bend over for another Adobe shafting - retool and be happy.
@lglethal
Point taken on Win7 availability - I haven't actually looked for it, but understand that "officially" it is no longer available.
As to the rest... I was making the point that there is a lot of software out there that - on the surface - appears able to replace the Apple-only tools that I rely on, but that in reality are not viable for me for one reason or another. Had I not done that then I expect a different commentard would have popped up to tell me I was wrong about there being no viable alternatives (and would have gone on to list the software - much of it cross-platform - that I have mentioned). Yet you hear me slagging off Windows, even though the only thing I am "rabid" about here is my frustration with Apple, and the general rise in user-hostility from big IT mega-corps like Apple and Adobe (and, yes, Microsoft too, seeing as you bring it up).
Just saying...
Yeah, but...
a) Can't get Win7 now (not easily / safely)
b) Can't run FCPX on Win 7; Premiere is Adobe so out of the question (and I don't like it at all); Vegas is fab for certain things, but can't cope with large, complex projects; DaVinci Resolve is still a work in progress IMO; Avid were one of the first to turn user-hostile, so they can F-off too!
c) Can't run Motion on Win 7; AfterEffects is more powerful without a doubt, but is Adobe (see b above), and is clunky beyond belief, making even simple motion graphics tasks (such as a basic lower-3rd for instance) into a laborious slog. DaVinci Fusion is too convoluted. Not sure what other options exist on Windows.
d) As mentioned, I personally like working in OSX and don't find it in the least bit infuriating - far from it, which goes a long way to explaining why I've been willing to pay the Apple premium/idiot tax in the past. Win 7 may be the least infuriating Windows version, but personally I do still find it infuriating (only not so much as 8, 8.1-is-9 and 10)
But totally agree on one thing: my MacPros are the best machines I've ever owned too, which is why it's so infuriating that Apple appear to be leaving the pro market - the dusty-bin should be called the MacMiniPro, and the new MacbookPro should at best be the MacbookAirPro. Why-oh-why can't they just release a powerful workhorse that runs OSX? Hell, they don't even need to design much - the old MacPro tower is still one of the best designed cases ever (practically and aesthetically... although a bit big too!), so just stick some up-to-date boards and chips in there and release and support it in the OS - Hackintosh enthusiasts manage it, so why not Apple?
As a designer and media producer, I am a long term Apple user. I wouldn't describe myself as a fanboi (others may) - I use Macs as they are the best tool for my job, and I do - personally - find OSX a much nicer place to work than Windows. Recently though, my patience with Apple, and willingness to pay their premium, has been waning rapidly...
- I needed a new Mac Pro. I looked at their "dusty bin" models and realised that however clever the design, they are fundamentally flawed because the internal storage is so small (and eye-wateringly expensive), factory upgrade options so limited (and eye-wateringly expensive), and after market upgrading impossible. This forces anyone with serious data storage needs, such as myself, into hooking up a plethora of external drives and breakout boxes, making that sleek dusty-bin look like a sleek dusty-bin on life-support, connected by innumerable cables to piles of boxes, each with its own wall-wart, and contribution to the noise and heat in my studio. All of that external stuff is also expensive thanks to the thunderbolt premium. I figured it would be like buying a Ferrari to look good in, but then putting a tow bar on it and dragging a caravan around everywhere I went! So I ended up buying a refurbed mac pro tower with easily as much grunt in it as a fully upgraded (and pant-wettingly expensive) dusty-bin, but for less than the cost of the base model dusty-bin (which is blown away performance-wise by my refurb). I was pleased to not give Apple money for their stupid little dustbin.
- I have the last MacbookPro model before they went unibody*. Since they went unibody they have not released a laptop that I would spend the money on: lacking the required connectors, no ability to upgrade RAM or storage, and no prospect of repair in the event of a failure. This is a £2K+ computer with "Pro" in its name, yet the biggest "sell" Apple can make is to try to give me, a pro user (who is presumably the sort of person a "Pro" computer is aimed at) a hard-on over a touch strip with emojis on it? And a voice assistant that I don't want on my phone let alone lurking within my workspace? And no support for current connection formats? Get real Apple, you've just released an expensive and overpowered toy, not a pro computer.
* I.E. filled with glue
- I needed to download their previous version OS (El Capitan) for one of my machines because some of the software and hardware I rely on is not compatible with the the latest OS (Sierra). Couldn't find it anywhere; contacted Apple only to be told that since I had not downloaded El Capitan previously (even though I had) I couldn't download it now - it was just not possible to provide me with access, the assistant insisted. So I figured I'd look at Sierra, just to test what did and did not work - the Mac in question would not download the installer because Apple had dropped support for the model in Sierra. So I contacted Apple again, only this time I was told that yes I could download El Capitan, no problem at all, and was given the link to the download. So if my chosen and required 3rd party software and hardware doesn't support their latest OS - tough shit, I'm on my own and can't have access to the previous OS; they'll only do that where they have artificially ceased support for hardware (see below). The refusal to give users a free choice, even between current supported OS's, is just stupid in the extreme, and very user-hostile.
- There is no fundamental difference between the last two tower MacPro models. Yet the last tower MacPro (the 5,1) will install Sierra whilst the penultimate one (the 4,1) will not. The difference between a 4,1 and 5,1 is so insignificant that a firmware hack can be done to upgrade one to the other. Apple do not provide a tool to do this; the website that hosted the firmware hack tool has been (it would seem) taken offline (I wonder who by...?!) and it is now extremely difficult to hunt down. This proves that Sierra's lack of support for the 4,1 is entirely artificial, and that Apple could - if it so wished - allow 4,1 owners to squeeze a bit more life out of their expensive hardware either by allowing Sierra to install on it, or by officially releasing the firmware update tool to lift a 4,1 to a 5,1.
- Tied in with the El Capitan / Sierra thing is the ridiculous rate at which Apple now release new versions of their OS. What most would consider a point upgrade, Apple now releases as a full new version, replete with artificial lock-downs and deprecations that have been deliberately designed to cost people money. And the rate of release now seems to be every 9 months or so - it's fucking ridiculous! I'm a pro, not a rich fashion victim! Plus, it means that by the time my software and hardware support the current OS version, Apple are on the verge of releasing yet another new version. This is making Apple's platform untenable as a pro working environment.
It's damned frustrating - there is no viable alternative for me: Windows is out of the question due to its enforced updating and slurping (not to mention its incessant popups and interruptions). Linux is great if you just want email, browser and office (and dev tools too), but the software and hardware support is still not there for the sorts of things I am doing.
With a bit of luck, when my current Macs reach EOL, either Apple will have realised (or decided to care about) how hostile they have become to their pro users, and will once more release a proper computer (and hell freezes over), or the developers of the software and hardware I use will have decided to support linux. I'd actually prefer the latter, cos I'd love to walk away from Apple for becoming customer-hostile, just like I've walked from Microsoft and Adobe for the same reason.
And the real irony? It is pro users such as myself that kept Apple going in the 90s and early 00s - nobody else was buying their stuff! As thanks we get a low-to-mid powered "pro" desktop computer that looks like dusty-bin on life support, and a "pro" laptop computer whose biggest feature is that it makes infantile emojis easy to add to documents. I posit that the Earth has developed a slight eccentricity in its orbit, this being caused by the speed at which Steve Jobs is now spinning in his grave.
Some of the peoples of Earth indulge in the game of cricket. As you will know, this game formed from the inherited consciousness of millennia long past, recalling the events of the Krikkit Wars. When the violent and warlike Krikkiters were finally defeated, it was decided to seal the planet Krikkit away within a Slo-Time Envelope so that the Krikkiters would no longer be a nuisance.
http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Krikkit
Perhaps a similar thing is going on here?
App-V. UE-V. MDOP. Direct Access. Windows To Go Creator. AppLocker. BranchCache. Start Screen Control with Group Policy. Volume agreement. Software Assurance. This edition, that edition. This experience, that experience...
...dunno about anyone else, but I can't even be bothered to have the slightest inclination to even begin to consider the possibility of giving brain-space to working out what any of their bollocks actually means.
"it's because they're offering a little more to try and get Apple-types to jump ship."
ahhahhahahahaha-hhaa-ha-ha-hohohooohoohhoo-no-no-stobbit-stobbit-no-hahaha
[takes deep breath and composes himself]
They expect me to jump back onto the rotten stinking edifice that I am so happy to have jumped off years ago...?! For a mere $300?!
hahahahahaha-haaahhhaaahahoohooohhhoohohahahah-enough-no-argghh-i-cant-take-it-etc
A bad example, by your own admission: Apple's response to the problems with FCPX was to throw the kitchen sink at it - they listened, responded, and honed FCPX into an astonishingly good NLE. They were right to move the NLE pardigm away from the FCP7 / Premiere / Avid one - the results speak for themselves: I can put a story together in a fraction of the time it took in FCP7, and the output quality is even better than was delivered by FCP7.
With Windows 10, on the other hand, MSFT started by trying to nag people into installing and have now moved to attempting to force it. At this rate, they'll be sending heavies round to anyone not running Win10 by Christmas!
So, rather than listening to and responding to customers in the manner of Apple, Microsoft have said a big "fuck you" to their customers and seem to consider people's computer hardware to be property of MSFT.
Me, I'm getting the popcorn machine warmed up - I can feel a class action coming on!
But if you read the article (and the Privacy International page) it's clear that this is ONLY to do with data that was passed to GCHQ from NSA prior to December 2014. So no, of course they're not going to let you know if you're the subject of an ongoing investigation, and nor have I suggested as much - duh.
But, in the specific circumstances described, the spy agencies have been found to have acted outside of the law. Is it OK for law breaking to go unchallenged and have no consequences - duh?!
"they have our "trust" that they will not do evil"
No, the naive may trust that the spysters will not do evil, the rest of us believe they are up to their pencil-necks in evil.
"Who in their right mind is going to trust GCHQ now if heads do not roll?"
Who in their right mind trusts GCHQ after we found out what the evil bastards are up to?
Some people seem to believe the bullshit we're fed about this being to "protect us". They need to wake up - it's about power, control and subjugation, plain and simple. Those who think governments tell the truth to their electorates and act in their best interests are pitifully naive.
"Small risk? Are you sure it's a small risk? I'd say it's a certainty that you'll make your way onto several lists with this approach."
Which is a perfect example of why the "nothing to hide nothing to fear" brigade are so utterly full of shit and clearly lack the brains to understand simple cause and effect.
So now an Apple Watch will...:
• allow you to fumble at your wrist to find a wee button that will tell you what time it is;
• ummm...
Remind me, what's the point of these?*
(and this is coming from a low-level fanbois, I.E. like and use Apple hw/sw; don't think Apple == devineBeing)
*Beyond telling the world that you have considerably more money than sense
"So you think my way is worse even though you've never tried it. That's a brave stance to take."
I said nothing of the sort - where did you imagine that one up from? And even if I had, it's not as brave a stance as having a go at someone based on an imaginary premise.
"Where you left them is irrelevant. You must think the search features tell you where you put the apps so you can then launch them the same way you usually do."
Hahaha - you're funny - who's taking a brave stance now? Imagining all sorts based on... umm... well, I don't know. Like most commenters on this site, I have more than a passing familiarity with many aspects of computing, including how search features work. .
"Are you confident that you can launch any app on your machine in about a second any other way?".
Some - less than a second, sure. They're right there on the dock - grab mouse, click, boom - an app launches. It's quite astonishing, really it is.
But I'm just looking for where I said that I begrudge the extra second it takes me to launch an app that isn't on my dock...? I'm sure it would be nice to save up all of those seconds and spend them on a nice holiday somewhere, away from dickheads and numbnuts. But I know that in reality they'll all be stolen by my boss and chalked up to "efficiency savings", so I think I'll keep those fleeting moments to myself thankyou very much, and stick by my personal view that I don't get the fascination with search features because things will be where I put them.
And, you know, having that extra second gives me time to ponder the deeper things - life, the Universe... everything. Maybe you should try it...
...then again, perhaps you should reclaim those lost seconds and spend them on a return to kindergarten comprehension class, because it appears that you read one thing but imagine you've read another. Word of advice though: until you've been back to school, don't go around demonstrating your ignorance by spouting off like this in public. Just makes you look stupid, and I'm sure you're not.
Funny old world, innit?
£16,595 for that?!
Or spend half as much on a 2-to-3 year old Focus / Civic / Golf etc. etc. and get a car with space, comfort, economy (when you want it), performance (when you need it), etc.
And it looks liable to roll over if you take a corner at anything approaching a normal driving speed.
With a cost reportedly ranging from $350 to $5,000 the Apple wristslab would not need to sell in droves in order to make a nice return for Tim Cook & Co.
What's with the price...? At $350 you've got something that looks little better than the plastic monstrosities people used to wear in the 80s (and has little extra to offer in functionality). And up to 5 grand? Surely the sort of chump willing to part with that much money for a sodding wristwatch will want to stick with the ostentatious and (supposedly) glamorous offerings from the likes of Rolex - you know, something that holds value and will last a long time. The battery in an Apple Watch will be dead within a couple of years - then what do you do with your 5 grand stupido-watcth? Wear it as a cheap-looking bangle? Worthless.
I also doubt this will create the stated "nice return" for Apple - they've had this chocolate teapot in development for yearsandyearsandyears. They must have poured several billion into it. If the analysts are right and it sells to 10% of fanbois (personally I think that's unlikely, especially at these prices) then they'll be lucky if they break even on the development costs.
And then, it was only the other day I was reading in these hallowed pages that Google's "explorers" are ditching Glass as a viable app platform. OK - glasses are different to a watch, but IMO it all points to the same thing: there's little interest in these wares, and nobody sees the point. Plus, why would you bother paying all of that money just to be snooped on more comprehensively?
In fact all of this "smart" tech is soooo yesterday: I'm utterly bored with smartphones - having owned both iPhones and 'droids I can safely say both are rubbish. And I'm struggling to see the worth of tablets (I own both iPad and Nexus-7) beyond reading El Reg on the bog - my laptop's just as good for doing this, and it keeps my knees warm at the same time (plus, when not at toilet, I can use it to do proper work or play proper games). Oh, and they seem to release a new sodding OS every couple of weeks, leaving you with a choice between being unable to install new apps, or crippling your device with a new "improved" (I.E. more resource-hungry) OS.
My next phone will be dumb, and when the batteries die in these tablets they'll go to landfill and not be replaced. Meh.
Is there no possibility that customers could take class action against the telcos? After all, the calls are an abuse of the telcos' own Ts&Cs and an abuse of their customers. The telcos are allowing their customers to be abused via their networks, yet appear to do nothing to address the problem.
99% of the time the calls aren't identifiable (so that's about one identifiable call a day for most of us!). How can one make a complaint against the source of the call if it's unidentifiable? If you respond to the call and ask what company is calling, they immediately hang up (assuming it's not just a recording that is).
But BT el al allow the practice to continue, and charge customers for blocking services. But, wait a minute, we have to pay to not be abused via their networks? That's extortion isn't it? And they profit from both ends of the deal! No wonder they're happy for it to continue - surely they can be proved responsible, even if only in a civil case?
Any lawyers out there know if there's actually a legal argument that can be constructed around this?
And one more thing - who the f**k respond to these things to make companies think it's worth the effort? It must be in the order of millions of calls to one 'hit'!
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