Posts by ThomH

Re: Next up...

Proprietary disk drive, proprietary joystick wiring and it _still_ doesn't do clash-free graphics? Not to mention the wallpaper operating system — we've had menus for years.

Re: Samsung

Samsung would be foolish to cut Apple off. Apple wouldn't just go home and think 'well, that showed us!', they'd take the same amount of money and give it to a competitor. All Samsung would achieve would be to boost their own competition.

Re: Usual Apple bashing

iPhones outsell Macs by about 7:1. Any notion that they sell exclusively to closed-minded sheltered people who buy nothing but Apple is demonstrably false. It's likely that the vast majority of iPhones are used with computers other than Macs, if they're used with computers at all.

Re: analysts BS

It doesn't sound like artificial scarcity because, as a poster noted above, there are several places where it wasn't scarce.

It's also valid to compare the iPhone specifically to the GS3 because Samsung do so in their own advertising. It's only false to draw wider inferences.

If that's true it'll be because Microsoft will supply its OS to anyone that wants to buy it and bundle it onto a phone, exactly like Google. So if WP8 were to start picking up steam then the sales people at Microsoft will be chasing Google's immediate customers, which should manifest itself as a benefit to end customers through market competition and diversity, and lead to WP8 being in a similar price bracket to Android.

Conversely the marketing support for iOS is locked in.

Re: Native Google maps (@Spudbynight)

Microsoft got hit with an antitrust suit for using its monopoly position in one market to distort competition in another. Specifically it used its desktop monopoly to kill Netscape.

Apple doesn't have a monopoly position in the phone market. Apple's inclusion of a different mapping app isn't going to kill Google. Indeed Apple's market share in the maps market is going to remain minuscule compared to that of Google Maps.

For the record, Apple argues that the licence with Google ran out. It probably did but something tells me they didn't try very hard to negotiate an extension.

Inflation helps those in debt because it decreases the burden of debt. You can therefore be confident that when governments are in heavy debt, inflation will increase one way or the other.

It's a double win for homeowners — those with the most burdensome debt most people will ever experience — since not only do their wages go up to make their mortgage repayments look smaller but the value of their house goes up so that not only does the bit they already own scale with inflation but they get the benefit of the inflation on the bit they don't own.

In summary: unusual increases in inflation is to redistribute wealth from lenders to borrowers.

So inflation is a short-term pain (wages being a trailing indicator, unlike the price of bread) and becomes a serious problem if it goes on long term (lenders factor it in, debt becomes harder to obtain, the economy slows down) but in the medium term it's good for debtors.

In the US — similarly to most western nations — more than two-thirds of properties are owned by the residents. That means that inflation, if controlled, is a good thing for the majority of people even if it doesn't immediately feel like one.

Objective-C is Java's primary influence (source: http://cs.gmu.edu/~sean/stuff/java-objc.html); while the syntax is reasonably different, switching from the one to the other isn't very tricky because the design patterns are generally very similar.

In six months I'd expect you could hire a Java developer and get him or her to learn Objective-C and write a pretty good iOS app, or vice versa.

Re: Ha...

"I once did a hundred takes and still couldn't say the word 'incorrigible.' Great! NOW I get it! Siri, bring Jessica Tandy back to life." ?

Re: "Apple has released Google's own YouTube app..." (@JeffyPooh)

Indeed — Apple's assertion that the licence to include YouTube has merely run out sound likely to me. It's a valuable brand and I can't think of any reason why Google wouldn't want to take back the reigns. I really don't think there's been any shenanigans here from either side.

@Joe 48

The various agencies have to investigate and find a monopoly abuse. In this case Microsoft went too far to cut Netscape out of the market. One of the things they did to achieve that was the bundling.

So Microsoft used its dominant position in one market (home computers) to distort competition in another (Internet browsers). That's the definition of anti-competitive behaviour. The idea is to prevent a company that's doing well in one market from being able to obtain control of another artificially. Control over a market isn't in itself punishable but the law intends to allow natural market forces to operate.

So there's the fact that when Microsoft acted the market for home computers and the market for internet browsers were considered to be separate. People were paying for Netscape when the behaviour began so that's not entirely unreasonable, though it's a little peculiar to think about now.

There's also the fact that Microsoft used the one monopoly to obtain the other. Were history radically different such that the iPhone ended up with 100% market share then the browser policy still might not be a problem — the product was launched with the explicit feature that third-party browsers (or, at the time, any third-party apps) weren't permitted. That's still the case. So at no point would Apple have used the one monopoly to obtain the other, rather consumers would have judged that the limitation was not a troubling impediment.

As for notepad, paint, etc, they don't matter either because they've always been inherent parts of Windows and/or because they would be considered a natural part of the desktop.

Putting the legal abstractions aside: at no point was there some other company producing far and away the most popular examples of something like notepad or like paint that Microsoft brushed aside through brute force of its desktop position. Conversely there was such a browser manufacturer. Bundling was only one part of what Microsoft were found to have done but it was something the court could realistically attempt to remedy with its existing powers.

The point is to protect the markets and allow consumers to use their free will so that if there is a single dominant player then it gets there on merit. The system's imperfect but all justice systems are and the stink of the various agencies acting against Microsoft is part of what gave Firefox a push.

I think it's just a small step beyond the normal connected TV concept. Instead of getting just YouTube, iPlayer and whatever else the manufacturer signed up and included you get Android as the standard base on which to install any media access software you want — whether the media is the traditional video and audio or something like your word processor in the cloud.

Or if you prefer it's like any TV with a browser but plus whatever the same advantages phones get from supporting apps as well as just the browser.

Re: Good

In defence of the original poster, I took his post more in the sense of 'I wish more manufacturers had a non-crapware option' rather than being specifically about Android or about advertising, since that seems to be an Amazon-specific problem.

People like you and I may know that the first thing to do upon purchase of a new PC is to uninstall the 30-day Norton trials, vendor-specific browser extensions, etc, but if I could pay £15 to move responsibility for that task for people like my parents from me to the manufacturer then I'd do so.

Re: Many people wear their ignorance as a badge of honor

There's as much evidence for that statement as there is for this: the pointlessly angry and the clueless typically dislike Apple products as they mistakenly believe that doing so is a status symbol rather than a totem of their lack of intellect. They need to get a life and buy a clue.

In reality both statements are false.

Yuppies are as likely to buy Androids as iPhones because they can waste their money upgrading to the new flagship every few months rather than every year. Contrast with normal consumers who probably upgrade every couple of years or so, whenever their contracts make it economically sensible to do so.

The clueless are equally likely to like and dislike everything because they pick at random.

The pointlessly angry just want an excuse to shout; they'll dislike everything that comes along.

Re: Once upon a time..

That's an inaccurate summary — Apple believes it has paid the Samsung fees because it merely buys in chips that incorporate Samsung's technologies and the relevant fees have already been paid. So Intel builds the baseband chips and pays the fees, then sells the chips to Apple. Samsung says 'that incorporates our technology, you have to pay', to which Apple replies 'Intel paid you, we paid Intel'. Apple has never attempted to argue that it shouldn't have to pay, only that it has already paid. It's an extension of same the reason that you and I don't have to pay Samsung for using its patented technologies.

See e.g. http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/15/3242099/intel-caught-middle-baseband-apple-samsung-trial

Whether Apple's defence stands up is immaterial to the point I'm making, which is simply that you're misrepresenting Apple's position on Samsung's patents. Everything from your third paragraph is inaccurate.

I expect to be voted down because Apple are almost impossible to endorse on moral or emotional grounds but I think those at least are the correct facts.

@Phillip Lewis

That's some good ad hominem. Imagine I put some swear words here if it helps bring things down to your level of conversation.

I said there are no new ideas in phones and nothing foreseeable coming. I'm also willing to say that there are no people on the street outside my window and none foreseeably coming. Things can plateau.

Re: Pretty sure....

Opera is no better than Apple and if you're against smug hyperbole you should dislike both. Remember June the 16th, 2009? You know, the day that Opera — per the heavily trailed viral advertising — reinvented the web?

Even the 12th is a rumour, isn't it? So this could go on a lot longer than that.

Re: Just when you thought it was safe to make a cup of tea....

It won't have been on the Spectrum; the C64 had specialised tape hardware that generated interrupts to signify incoming data. So the CPU sat there mostly idle, waiting to be alerted to input. The Spectrum essentially just had a 1-bit analogue-to-digial converter, so to load data the CPU ran a continuous polling loop, incrementing internal counters for timing. So if you want to spend CPU time on anything other than just watching the tape, you have to engineer suitable opportunities into your data stream, which means lowering the loading speed. So Spectrum games usually just left a static screen up and almost never went beyond a ticking counter. You could do a full game but then you'd need to ensure incoming tape data was really very slow indeed.

Re: Betrayed by your management

More than that, one suspects the inkjets were dragging down the brand. Would you spend a proper amount of money on a laser printer from that company primarily known for all-but-disposable £30 giveaway inkjets, or would you try to pick something more psychologically trustworthy?

Putting the subscription and portability questions aside, it's like offering web apps but with full desktop app functionality. You go to the web site, log in and then you're using Microsoft Word. So, before applying caveats, it's desirable because it means that you're saved the chore of installation and your access to the apps goes everywhere you do. For a large number of people the web is the main interface to computers.

That being said, it's not a service for me. I don't want to pay a subscription when there are alternatives that I can own outright for less money and my desire to tie myself to Windows is even less than when the desktop was all there was.

Re: Mouse travel

The Mac menubar's positioning isn't really a large factor in usability to be honest. As pointed out, it being at the top makes it effectively infinitely tall for hitting with a cursor so that's good, but it always sits at the top of whichever screen you nominate as your main one so getting to it can be a real task, which is bad.

There's only one, which makes more compact, which is good. But that means that it's modal, which is bad.

From a subjective point of view, neither of the goods or the bads outweighs the other.

In practice I think it's even less of an issue because people that use computers a lot tend to use keyboard shortcuts anyway. Besides the task specific command+s for save/etc, the best Mac one for the menubar is command+shift+forward slash. That opens the search box in the 'help' pull down, so then you just type the name of the menu bar command you want (or some section of it) and hit enter as a sort of menubar-specific take on quick launchers.

Re: T-mobile Vivacity

If I dare venture a quite separate opinion then Apple hasn't come knocking because neither ZTE nor Orange are in the Apple supply chain. The lawsuits against Samsung are probably as much a negotiating pawn in next year's parts order as anything else.

Re: Dear Mr Beck

They say Lady Gaga et al are inspired by the 80s — I guess Beck just misunderstood?

Re: Runaway jury? (@ShadowedOne)

The converse argument runs that removing juries in 'complicated' cases (this, serious fraud, etc) would be a thin end of the wedge. Before you know it you've got one case where a defendant unfairly gets off, say, a serious assault, so a tabloid contorts a policeman into saying that the jury obviously didn't understand the evidence and a populist politician decides to withdraw juries for assault. And it never ends. Better that we let huge multinationals suffer the caprice of a jury than that we endanger the principle of trial before jury.

You also don't generally want experts in a jury because they tend to second guess the evidence and to ignore the law. Same reason that those with legal qualifications are usually vetoed almost immediately in countries where the advocates get a say. Juries are meant to decide simple issues of fact — is Company A's product similar to Company B's in specified ways — while the judge does issues of law — is such similarity, if found, infringing per intellectual property law and the patents cited?

Do looks really matter? It has a feel quite unlike every other interchangeable lens camera on the market — despite the focussing issues there's something timeless to it. The results are excellent too. I guess the only downside is that the unique sensor array has led to poor third-party software support so far. Lightroom now has some support but the conversion leaves a lot to be desired versus the in-camera JPEG writer. Also the bundled software, SilkyPix, is quite awful from a usability point of view.

Summary: I love mine to pieces, though post-processing options are currently limited.

From what I can make out, the UK reminded Ecuador of the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987. In summary, embassies have their status only while the secretary of state recognises them as such, and diplomatic premises need to be used exclusively for diplomatic purposes. The secretary can unilaterally cease to recognise them as such if he thinks international law would allow, it and is supposed to take some prescribed factors into account, including safety to the public.

The embassy isn't foreign soil or anything like that, regardless of popular opinion.

In this case, based entirely on probably uninformed speculation, I guess the argument goes that the embassy has a man who is wanted for assault and contempt of court and — allowing for the fact that he doesn't have any sort of immunity — is planning surreptitiously to transport him through British territory, itself a crime. So the secretary of state could have grounds to conclude that the Ecuadorian embassy is being used as a property in which to plan the commission of crime rather than for diplomatic purposes and revoke its status. After that the police are obviously free to enter.

Re: Sounds like she thinks they're going to go against Apple

I'd vote jaduncan up twice if I could — the tin-foil hat accusations sound quite desperate.

Re: First use will be in computing

If I dare cite that particular company, the 15" MacBook Pro is already available with a 2880x1800 pixel resolution. So it's safe to assume we'll be at 4k resolution with, say, 30" monitors, within a year or two.

Re: the iPhone has definitely lost the "must-have" factor it used to have (@Shagbag)

The iPad 3 is an iPad 2 with a higher resolution screen, faster processors and a better camera. If you're going to define that as not being a sufficient improvement then you should probably stop paying attention to the industry as it's basically complete. I still don't believe anyone uses cameras on tablets as anything other than a last resort but the screen improvement was significant.

You're right about the 4S though — though it had a faster processor and a better camera, the experience of using it is essentially identical to the 4.

Re: Why is there never one for work?

The Kindle DX is 9.7" but inexplicably available only in the US. The lack of competition also seems to have allowed it to retain a disproportionate price tag.

Re: Anyone know

Reputedly, being against the use of their music in advertising contributed to the Beasties' big break; suing British Airways for the unauthorised use of their first EP (and insisting that the advertising stop rather than that they be cut in) gave them just about their only pre-fame income, working up to the first album.

I've come around to the opinion that Apple's game plan here isn't to obtain a few extra millions from patent infringement rulings but rather to try to build a narrative that Samsung aren't at the leading edge. The use of a legal route to push that message is neither here nor there.

I'm optimistic that most of the real world has spotted that mobile phones are essentially stagnant and are picking based on the sort of preferences you state, and therefore that this whole story is just an annoying sideshow.

Re: No Optical Drive

I have my fingers crossed that if this rumour amounts to anything at all then it just means no disc media drive by default, so a safe assumption that quite a few people (as a proportion, though this is hte Mac Pro we're talking about) won't have one.

There are quite a lot of people that are happy not to have one but it would be ridiculous to tell big-box buying professionals that they can use an external device or nothing.

That sums up the entire phone industry.