* Posts by Philip Lewis

991 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Aug 2009

Apple wants sales ban on Samsung smartphones nobody is selling

Philip Lewis
Headmaster

Re: You're banning it wrong

"I never said they stole anything. I pointed out that they'd copied Sony's design(s).

According to Apple, this was desgned (sic) in the style of a Sony Phone... it says it right there on that page."

You really need to learn to speak English.

Lesson 1:

"desgned (sic) in the style of a Sony Phone" != "they'd copied Sony's design(s)"

These things are not the same. You incorrectly conflate them and then your argument is senseless.

Philip Lewis

Re: You're banning it wrong

"Right after this article was circulated internally, Apple industrial designer Shin Nishibori was directed to prepare a “Sony-like” design for an Apple phone and then had CAD drawings and a three-dimensional model prepared. Eliminating any doubt about the origin of the *design‘s inspiration*, Apple‘s internal CAD drawings had the "Sony" name prominently emblazoned on the phone design, as the below images from Apple‘s internal documents show... "

Nishibori (employed by Apple) created a design based on Sony's design philosophy, and he even stuck the Sony name on it because, well, he was designing a phone as if Sony were making one.

Apple did not steal anything from Sony, and what I wrote is correct.

Comprehension failure.

Philip Lewis

Re: This looks awfully like

There is, and I kid you not, The Samsung Insurance Company of Thailand

Philip Lewis

Re: You're banning it wrong

"We've all seen the slide of the Sony phone they copied."

I guess I will have to debunk this stupid urban legend again.

a) Apple did not copy a Sony design

b) Apple employed a former Sony designer and paid him to do a mock up using Sony design hints

c) Sony had nothing to do with the "Jony" phone

Geddit?

Snapchat: In 'theory' you could hack... Oh CRAP is that 4.6 MILLION users' details?

Philip Lewis

I put my spambucket account in there. let's see if the spam increases :D

Ubuntu desktop is so 2013... All hail 2014 Ubuntu mobile

Philip Lewis

"Samsung et al could then slim down their programming effort as there was no longer an operating system to write. (modify Android/sort out drivers/compile and test)"

They still sell quite a few Bada (?) phones, and they seem to be expending some effort on Tizen (?) which may be an alternative to Android in the long run.

Samsung are trying to play the long game, and get people attached to their brand. Android is a necessary evil at this point, as provably few people actually care what OS is running on their phone, as long as it does what it says on the time and meets their needs.

Samsung will reach a moment in time where changing Android for Tizen (or Jolla hehehe) at some point. Whether they jump will be interesting.

Get lost, fanbois: Nokia pulls HERE Maps from Apple's App Store

Philip Lewis

Re: Apple maps - could be worse

Mike, the lack of driving instructions was the reason Apple pulled Google Maps - Google refused to offer it in Google Maps as a "Fuck You", because they could. So Apple, being the richest company on the planet simply did their own. The quality of the data in the initial release could have been better, but it is a good appm these days and there is now one less reason to have YAGPTY (yet another Google product tracking you)

Philip Lewis

Re: Gone away on a Safari ?

Oh, I just upgraded today, and you are right.

Philip Lewis

Re: 10% market share

@zola

Well, the relentless pursuit of market share at the expense of current profit, in the hope of establishing a foothold in the market and recouping the losses at a later time is the strategy of countless failed companies - many of whom were egged on by the mentally defective analysts of Wall Street fame.

Like the or hate them, Apple have avoided, and continue to avoid, the death wish pursuit of market share.

Philip Lewis

Re: PostIt Notes...

Re: Frankfurt

For the uninitiated, zooming around and through Frankfurt is byzantine and without local knowledge you will probably end up at the airport. A GPS is a big plus actually. I am not sure why your GPS sent you on an inappropriate route, though if you have an Audi, I can sympathise with you ;)

Official: Apple hooks up with WORLD'S LARGEST MOBILE OPERATOR

Philip Lewis

Hmm, I think expecting accuracy from The Register reprinting second hand reports from know-nothing ANALysts is perhaps an unrealistic expectation.

Mozilla: Native code? No, it's JavaScript, only it's BLAZING FAST

Philip Lewis

Re: Very Nice Mozilla

Try this ... http://www.palemoon.org/

The 64 bit build works a treat

Apple won't bag HUMUNGOUS 4G deal... 'cos China HATES plastic iPhone 5C – analyst

Philip Lewis

Another analysts guess based on no data ... no news here then.

Tube be or not tube be: Apple’s CYLINDRICAL Mac Pro is out tomorrow

Philip Lewis

Re: it does look different

"I had this in mind at least as far back as 2005 -- there's nothing special about the idea, IMHO."

Actually, I had an idea that the best way to make money was to get your customers to do your work for you and pay you for the privilege - I had this idea as far back as 1978 while I was at university. Unfortunately the enabling technologies were not in place and I was unable to execute this seminal idea. Sadly for me, others have capitalised on my prescience (DHL and banks in general were first IIRC) and I have been left penniless and without the credit for this brilliant idea that I justly deserve.

Philip Lewis

This really is very impressive packaging.

Compare and contrast with any other offering ...

Apple iWatch due in October 2014, to wirelessly charge from one metre away – report

Philip Lewis

Re: Ridiculous nonsense

Good grief, Rolex?

Chosen watch of pimps, Stockbrokers and Jaques Cousteau!

Really, unless you are a bit of an outdoors-man, where the indestructible nature of the Rolex oyster is highly desirable, a Rolex has about as much status as a Porsche (i.e. not much).

Philip Lewis

Re: iWatch ? I cannot believe

I wear a reference 5712/G-001 because it is an exquisite piece of watchmaking, and because I can.

... end of this pointless threadlet

Steelie Neelie: EU biz can use YOUR private data WITHOUT PERMISSION

Philip Lewis

All your data are belong to us

Wintel must welcome Androitel and Chromtel into cosy menage – Intel

Philip Lewis

@ Anonymous Coward, 22nd November 2013 09:46 GMT

http://www.mc.co.th/products/view/2108/egreat-android-tv-box-quad-core-gpu-1-6ghz

I think an AppleTV sells for 3300 at MBK in Bangkok, so the price is not "cheap", but I admit that it might be fun to have, except that domestic internet in Thailand is very possibly worse than it is in Australia (a hard act, I know).

Support for USB keyboard/mouse and USB harddisk make this an alternative to a similar setup based on RasberyPi. I might pick one up and have a play with it. Run XBMC and I should be good to go.

The RasberyPi route might be cheaper/better though. I am still investigating.

From Dept of REALLY? Sueball lobbed at Apple over crap iOS Maps app

Philip Lewis

Re: I'm fairly sure...

Wow, two down votes for providing a reference for something the Apple haters/Google lovers like to believe does not exist.

Way to go guys, you are in fact morons.

Philip Lewis

Re: I take it...

I have personally seen the memory leak on 2008 - after a long enough up-time, memory "disappears".

The problem is solved with a reboot.

I can speak for no other version.

Philip Lewis

Re: Have I read...

Yeah, I miss Mad Mike!

Philip Lewis

Re: I'm fairly sure...

"Given that Australian police have told people flat out that using Apple maps is about as sensible & safe as using a baby taipan as a yoyo.. I think there is legal precedent."

http://www.macworld.com.au/news/australian-police-issue-google-maps-warning-82428/

(whoops, Google guilty too, sorry to burst your bubble)

I wasn't aware Australian police warnings had binding legal power in the USA. I must have missed the memo.

Philip Lewis

Re: ...other people probably should get lives before it is too late...

No, I meant the people who I knew would down vote me massively for offering a factual, balanced view of the reality of map navigation systems in general. i.e. people too stupid to have an intelligent thought. I mean, it's not like I praised Apple (or Sony or Google or Garmin or your favourite villan), I just pointed out what is bleedingly obvious.

Google maps used to have a MacDonalds in the middle of Piazza San Marco FFS.

As for using a phone as a satnav, you have a lot of company. The car I am most likely to use has one built-in so the idea never occurs to me. That said, despite updating the satnav maps, it often leads me astray and often roads are missing ... just saying.

Philip Lewis

Maps apps display raw data in a human consumable form. The quality of raw data from ALL navigation systems is imperfect, some of the systems are more imperfect than others.

It is without doubt that Apple's source data is not perfect. It is equally without doubt that so is Google's, and Nokia's etc. etc. This is all a question of which is least imperfect, and that apparently depends whether you love/hate Apple, love/hate Google, love/hate Garmin etc. etc.

Yawn ..., in the 6 years I have had a smartphone with maps functionality, I think I have used it 3 times*. Pretty clearly, I am not directionally challenged, and a lot of other people probably should get lives before it is too late.

* I use the satnav in a car often enough though.

US Patent Office disputes crucial scroll-and-bounce Apple tech – Samsung demands patent trial halt

Philip Lewis
Joke

1941

Japanese soldier: [trying to squeeze a large radio into the sub] We've got to figure out how to make these things smaller!

Philip Lewis

Re: "scrolling and bouncing" is patentable?

If no one "gives a monkey's", as you suggest, why did Samsung copy it, and why did Nokia (presumably) pay for the privilege of using it?

Serious question.

Bill Gates orders hitman to kill right-hand man Steve Ballmer

Philip Lewis

Aspen time sharing?

Dear-ly beloved: Apple’s costly iPad Mini with Retina Display

Philip Lewis

IIRC the iPhone is supposed to have a screen that is more or less RGB perfect and is supposedly the best on the market.

This review suggests that the iPad Mini is not nearly as good in this respect, at least in theory (YMMV depending on how good your vision is).

Have I understood this correctly, and if so, why is this the case?

Samsung v Apple: Titans await jury verdict on damages of MILLIONS

Philip Lewis

Re: Madness.

"You might say that it's the combination of the rounded-rectangle coupled with the dimensions, being somewhat flat and wide, however phones before the iPhone had been moving in that direction, getting slimmer and increasing their screen size."

a) Apple lost the "rounded rectangle" design patent. Wrongly IMHO.

b) IIRC Shamsung even used the same radius curve for the corners, amongst the infinite number available, something that is so improbable that is beyond all reasonable doubt that it was copied.

Google WILL wriggle away from Euro probe... but THEN what?

Philip Lewis

Google = Evil

See Title

iPAD AIR WORLD DEBUT: Our Australian team gets an early fondle

Philip Lewis

Me2

Yes, my iPad3 has gone to a good home (and at a good price), and I will pick up one next week.

Mac OS X Mavericks 'upgrade' ruins iWorks

Philip Lewis

Re: Another one bites the dust

"Apple's sales and share prices have fallen in light of his former lover's revelations about his lack of humanity, and this 'upgrade' is hardly going to help that downward slide. "

Can you cite some reference to reality that supports this contention?

Philip Lewis

Me2 mondo ... but the performance improvements and price might nudge me from the highly robut 10.6.8 to Mavericks

'Tablet' no longer means 'iPad': Apple share PLUMMETS below 30%

Philip Lewis

Re: Niche Product

<1% is >0

That makes you an idiot!

Philip Lewis

Re: But how many of the Android tablets are landfill?

" less-than-premium I-Pad-Mini."

Speaking as someone who has, measurably, the absolute visual accuity afforded by nature, you (and everyone else who slams the specifications for the iPad mini) are full of shit.

The average human (not me) really cannot see the difference in any real sense.

Specs are for nerds and morons, not for humans.

Philip Lewis

Re: Peak Apple

I believe the sub-continent is still crashing into Asia, so I suspect that good 'ol Everest has in fact not yet peaked. I could be wrong of course because ...

Philip Lewis

Re: Peak Apple

"failure to 'excite' the media"

I have met and interacted wih a lot of "Media" people in my life (and sadly their Wall Street counterparts "analysts"). They were almost all, so astoundingly stupid, and incapable of a logical thought process, that it beggars belief.

There is no "intelligence test" for journalists. It is a refuge (for the most part) of the the incapable, who see it as a virtue to pour shit on anything and everyone that/who rise above the pathetic.

YMMV, but basically, I haven'y met a journalist who I would piss on if he/she burst ito flames.

Why did Nokia bosses wait so long to pop THAT Lumia tab?

Philip Lewis

Re: Nokia saves another MS OS?

"Not via the OS. Only via a third party emulator - Digital FX!32"

To be fair, it FX!32 wasn't an emulator, despite the fact that it did have an X86 emulation component. People can look it up if they want to know what it was, but the run time performance of fully profiled X86 applications on Alpha was pretty damned good, all things considered.

Philip Lewis

Re: The Name

Hey, it's easy to remember if you're from the 'gong!

Apple under CEO Angela Ahrendts? Hmm ... (beard stroke)

Philip Lewis

A really terrible article, clutching at the inevitible straws to fortell impending Apple doom. I wish the Reg would actually write something interesting about Apple instead of repeating the same mindless crap over and over again.

Really, someone I never heard of says something completely off the wall about someone almost no one has heard of before now, and suddenly she is Tim Cook's successor?

Can I have whatever you're smoking, clearly my shit's not string enough

Apple 'happy ending': BULGING iPhone WAD - but can it ever be enough?

Philip Lewis

I expect to see the "peak Apple", "end of Apple" etc. etc to appear here very shortly with same old tired arguments from people simply trying to wish reality to be something different.

In the mean time, only lack of personal financial reserves prevented me from buying more.

Apple does seem to have a lot of cash and liquid assts with which to play. As a shareholder, I would prefer that they managed a higher ROI on that component of their business though, but I understand their conservatism.

Philip Lewis

Re: @WhoaWhoa

"In this case, Apple products are most certainly the premium product."

... and as most people who've owned one, also the high quality product.

You all need to get over the fact that Apple make very good consumer kit, and support it to a level to a level few other PC companies can even aspire. They sell a squillion units to happy customers, most of whom are just as savvy and smart in their buying choices as the commentards here.

Don't crack that Mac: Almost NOTHING in new Retina MacBook Pros can be replaced

Philip Lewis

Re: It dissuaded me

I hated focus follows mouse back in the old days, and I hate it now. It is a broken idea.

Philip Lewis

Re: Dells?

Same experience here ... The two chassis' worth of Dell blades have been quite good, and while under service there were some issues that were remedied without issue.

Dell make crap laptops for Joe public. They make blades for the enterprise. The only think that these two machine types share in common is the Dell logo

Philip Lewis

Re: Tablet Computer

"It's a deliberate design decision to build in obsolescence"

More likely it's a deliberate design decision to increase rigidity, reduce the component count, reduce the complexity of construction, eliminate exposed contacts etc. etc.

And in any case, pop on down to Apple and I am sure you can have the batteries replaced. I haven't needed to on my MBA.

Study: Arctic warming at 'stunning' rate – highest temps in 44,000 years

Philip Lewis

Re: While

Don, I assume in you 160+ years, you exclude the past decade or so where the pro-AGW crowd have pretty much educated Joe Public to believe that "peer reviewed" = "absolute scientific truth"?

From Hansen down the chain, the "peer reviewed" card has been very heavily played, and it is proven that a cadre of pro AGW "scientists" has managed to hijack the process to limit the publication of offending papers.

We need lots more research where the exercise is not to "prove" AGW, but to falsify it (though AGW is so nebulous that falsification in a strict sense is not logically possible, which I guess is the point ...). There is way too much confirmation bias in way to much reasearch that is funded to "look for a signal" in the noise that points to the magic CO2 tap that, when turned off, will mystically stave of the impending eco-doom.

Philip Lewis

Re: greenies are wrong about almost everything

"a young college student, a girl of Indian descent, invented a super capacitor, that will change the world in cheap high energy storage. "

HERESY!

The greenies will crucify her. Anything that creates or contributes to cheap abundant energy is BAD! They want to send us back to the stone ages, energy=bad for the true greenie.

If you don't believe this, listen to the crap that spews from the collective mouths of the green movement's spokesmen

Philip Lewis

Re: While

Google what Burt Rutan had to say. His 40 page presentation cuts through the bullshit like few others

Does Apple make you puke? Take this iOS 7.0.3 update with your tablets

Philip Lewis

Re: @ eSeM - Another bug fix .... @emmanuel goldstein

... and I think you should quote less