trezor

After posting this comment, I got a stern email from mister Paul Graham. You read that right. The cult of Apple is so strong here, that the site owner emails you when you talk against the brain-washed mantra: Apple is God.

Granted, I had a bit of tone as well, but still.

I'll take your advice and just leave it at that. That and refrain from commenting on any Apple-related threads in the future. There's obviously no point trying to bring the real world into HN Apple threads.

Steve Jobs touched people lives in a way no other can, sometimes at a very personal level

Can we please stop the Steve Jobs and Apple suck-up here on HN please? This is getting as embarrassing to read as it is getting sickening.

I realize the Sanfran wannebe hipster-crowd here like their shiny iGadgets and want to reaffirm their own worth by appraising the company which they have attached their identity to, but this is getting a little bit out of hand and quite frankly, rather silly.

I see you are trying to draw attention away from the fact that Apple has on repeated occations shown to be dishonest, disengenious and outright misrepresenting competitors by presenting information in ways they knew to be wrong.

I see you do that and I wonder why on earth anyone would be so loyal to a corporation that they would be willing to drag their own credibility down to defend the credibility of a corporation which in they have no vested interest. It baffles me and makes no sense.

That aside, let's get back to what you said:

I don't think he meant truth in terms of marketing ...snip... but truth as design fundamental.

Can you elaborate on what you think this is supposed to mean, apart from being a divertion away from the fact that Apple, more than any other company currently out there, manipulates and lies to their audience and to sustain their image as "different"?

Rsync in cygwin also (severely) messes up your files' and folders' NTFS-permissions when synching against a linux-host, which can lead to things like the meltdown of a complete IIS website/webserver setup since the IIS worker process can no longer access the files it needs.

I've learnt the hard way that you dont use rsync in cygwin for anything remotely crucial ;)

From the comments here, it seems that I will still need TeraCopy when Windows 8 comes around. That's a bit of a bummer, but I can live with that.

Seriously though. TeraCopy does just the right thing and is one of those "must have" Windows additions, despite the ugly-looking UI.

For those interested: http://www.codesector.com/teracopy.php

Cue iOS.

Which was a nice experiment which proved that it didn't work. You know what you can't do on iOS which most users want to be able to do?

Yeah. Work with the same document from multiple viewpoints, or applications. You can't work with documents across applications on iOS because you supposedly don't have files.

Like I said: A nice experiment, but it proves that "no files" only works for the simplest of use-cases and limits the ability to work with data beyond the limits that people reasonably expect to find.

Even if you discounted MeeGo as a no-go (no pun intended) as I did before playing with the N9, Android would make more sense

Just to clarify: I never claimed that doing Windows Phone 7 was the better option over than doing Android. I claimed that delivering someone else's OS is probably the wiser bet for Nokia, as historically they've been just awful with software.

And with a CEO coming straight from Microsoft, going the WP7-route instead of doing Android, seems like a pretty obvious and "safe" decision.

It doesn't really support webkit either. It also rejects my Android cellphone's browser, which is 100% webkit-based.

Don't you think it's a bit suspicious a recently hired CEO who was until recently a high profile Microsoft employee discontinues a major platform investment on the eve of launching a competitive product (I have played with the N9 and it's a very good phone) and bets the company on a yet-unproven (and I am being more than generous on this assessment) Microsoft product?

I haven't tried the N9 so I cannot comment on it nor the platform which powered it, only that historically, Nokia's only edge has been good hardware. They have been (and still are, as far as I have seen) absolutely horrible at software.

I would trust a platform made by Microsoft infinitely more than anything coming out of Nokia HQ, and that is despite all the failings of Microsoft in the mobile and tablet space.

Now... With that said: There is no doubt that by going the Microsoft route Nokia is losing something. They are now a generic phone-vendor delivering someone else's OS. They no longer fully own their own platform and stack.

This is quite a significant loss and definitely a big risk. However: Given Nokia's history with delivering software and software-platforms, I think it's a smaller risk than trying (once again) to deliver something made in-house.

And I really don't find it "suspicious" that a recently hired CEO choose to turn to technology and people he already know. I find it a very obvious move, even though it's not very obvious if it is the best choice or not.

Nokia is going Windows-only in America because that's the only way they can get the carriers to go along

So basically Nokia is only playing by the rules of the market, and the real problem is US carriers abusing their position. The real problem is US carriers, again.

So much bullshit stems from the way US carriers completely obliterates and perverts the free market, that you would think some government regulation would be heading their way sooner or later. Interesting how that haven't happened yet.

In some countries many people have SIM-only contracts and buy their own unlocked phones from a third party.

I would argue this is the norm in most of Europe, not just "some countries".

Only where the telcom business have gone completely unregulated for too long, have the USesque system of carriers controlling phones taken hold.

If you are going to predict any major actor right now of aggressively and offensively suing people into oblivion, Apple would be the obvious target of that accusation and not Microsoft.

Microsoft has enough business vested all over the place. They don't need mobile to profit. Apple's only real source of income however, is now reduced to iOS-devices only. They need mobile, desperately.

The fact that Apple is already suing left and right, right now, when their platform is going well and they technically shouldn't need to be in any state of despair, that should tell you who to fear the most.

When you buy an Apple-product, no matter how shiny and polished it seems right there and then, you support this shit. Your newly acquired, polished Apple-product just made your hands dirty.

Are you seriously suggesting everyone else in the market should be banned from making tablets because Apple was the first one to make one which is publically recognized?

You may not have said so explicitly, but it is hanging out there, on the broad side of your argument.

Ah well. No idea about Mac. Might be different there for all I know, but the Windows-version has been like that since FF 4, at least when the window is maximized.

When not maximized it sort-of looks like in the linked screenshot. Running the latest "UX-builds", I can see that it now has the maximized-behvaiour for all Window-states, so you are right in there being some changes.

IMO it works really well and is one of the things which sets Android apart from iOS and other OSes in general.

One of the finer points which I really appreciate is how intents can be fine-tuned not only to handle "a image" or "a mp3" or act like a extension/protocol-handler in your desktop OS, but how it can react on parts of a intent, like the domain of a URL.

When someone links to Applications on Android market on a web-page (i.e., a https-link to market.android.com) and I click it on my Android device, I actually get the link "opened" by having Android market app launched and focused on that specific application. Very, very neat.

The same thing can be done for wikipedia readers. A wikipedia link launches your app. In the same way other apps can provide intents for music selection, playback, data-sources, data-consumers and god knows what. Or just have an app become the default for some action on your system by handling the generic intent (i.e. surf the web).

Intents are one of the really good things which makes Android Android. And in case there were any doubts: I think it works out bloody fantastic.

I hear this claim quite often, but I have yet to see it documented. I'm not saying you are wrong, just asking if you have some link to a study supporting this argument or anything similar.

Please. This is hacker news, not fark nor reddit. Just don't.

Folk are focusing on the two changes that make this more like chrome (tabs in title bar, and apparent removal of search bar.)

This has been in FF since version 4. These mockups are for FF 8.

Interesting way to finish it off:

Now’s the time. Someone needs to start the ball rolling and just say no.

So really just about anyone but author, then?

searched the Marketplace, but the Android stock keyboard isn't on there.

It's called "Keyboard from Android 2.3" and it's being compiled and delivered by someone else than Google. Works fine though and lets you download dictionaries as you need them.

Here, have a market-link: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.moo.android.inputm...

And just think, all these android users would have to get iTunes accounts.

I don't think you will find a international standards-body which will standardize anything which requires an iTunes account. I may be wrong, but I sure as hell hope not.

It just changed the whole industry and showed How It's Done.

I may not like your tone, but if nothing else you are correct about this point. Apple was clearly the company who made everyone else understand that delivering a good smartphone involved good software in addition to hardware and that good hardware alone was worthless. For this they deserve recognition.

That being said: They created a platform, a very simple and limited platform, which worked adequately for people of limited needs. And for an initial release it was absolutely stunning.

That said, this does in no way translate into a platform which ages and evolves well. My complaints are mostly in this department and this is where I think Android is (and will remain) miles ahead of iOS.

There we go again. Market share. Author did not even bother to consider, at whose expense Samsung and HTC are gaining said share. Apple did grow too.

Fair point, but Apple's growth is clearly in a decline compared to earlier years.

And once the established smartphone market stabilizes at something with Android clearly in the lead (like 80% Android and 20% iOS) which platform do you think will get the attention of developers? Which platform do you think will get the apps first? Which platform do you think will get the exclusive apps?

If (and I say if) the divide gets big enough for these kinds of mechanisms to trigger and start playing in, iOS as a platform will slowly but surely lose users, and have the process reinforce itself until the platform wither off and dies.

So in that regard, while market share isn't everything, it is still important for lots of other strategic concerns which most certainly are.

Just replying to say how you are confirming my point either you intend to or not: What people think about different things differ, and there is no "universal" consensus about most things.

Like there is no universal consensus on the iPhone being "better" than its Android rivals.

I guess we somehow agree even though we seemingly don't.

To be fair, they look like any other smartphone which is black and has a touchscreen. Apple cannot be granted a patent on being black. Not even black with rounded corners. That's not how the world works.

And if we dig deeper, behind the PR-piece which Apple seemingly is winning (here on HN at least), lets compare the iPhone to Samsung F700, introduced in 2007, before the iPhone.

http://phandroid.com/2011/04/20/did-apple-really-steal-their...

I mean... It may not be all black and white, but lets not grant Apple a blanket-right to make rounded, glossy things and assume everyone else is stealing from them.

I work in software development. Almost everyone in my department has Android-phones bar a few self-confessed iAddicts (and one daring Windows phone 7 beta-tester). Despite its huge commercial success, the iPhone is among my peers considered a rather lulzy thing and a the undisputed weakest and least sophisticated of all the mobile platforms when measured on its own merits.

Not saying this is absolute truth either, but it certainly shows that your comment about what "most" people might think certainly doesn't ring true universally.

Samsung makes eerily close copies of the iPhone

As a former iPhone-owner gone (Samsung) Android I resent that comment. iOS is a one-dimensional, inflexible and locked down platform which bored the hell out of me and this was the primary reason I went over to Android.

Android and Samsung's phone (the Galaxy S, which I have and which they are sueing for) is nothing like the iPhone and every single day I'm very happy for it.

Besides copying your contacts from gmail, this should do everything you require.

The problem is that you don't want a copy, you want a maintained copy. You want your data synchronized.

Outlook does this very neatly with Exchange, which is why it rules the enterprise. Android does this very neatly with your Gmail/Google account. The iPhone also does this to some extent (at least against Exchange contacts).

Once you get used to the idea that there is only one set of data, going back to working on different sets, different copies of what should be the same data feels very, very wrong.

You can say what you like, but a copy alone will not do "everything you require" for most people these days.

Crosspost of my post on reddit on why these analyses are flawed (from http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/hu4l1/apples_ime... ):

SMS is "expensive" anywhere in the world when counting $s/byte, it's not just the US. The reason is that you cannot simply do price comparison based on data-rates: it's a flawed top-level down approach ignoring very real concerns and constraints.

The reason for SMS being relatively expensive per byte is that it's actually a hack which allows us to send data over the global GSM control channel, not a regular phone-allocated voice/data-channel. This makes it's main carrier a very bandwidth constrained channel and SMS is second class traffic sent on a as-available basis, but with queued on demand push-reception for the recipient.

Your data-traffic however has a dedicated channel, realtime priority, and realtime constraints, and it would need to go trough a intermediate service which can queue it if the receiver is not there. And the recipient would have to have an always on data-connection polling for incoming messages, draining your battery, much like Email push-notification does on modern smartphones.

In other words: Data and SMS are fundamentally different services, operating with fundamentally different channels and technologies. Your OSI-minded application-level analysis is incomplete.

True, this might not make much difference to the end-user of the service provided, but there are technical reasons for why SMS and data is treated and priced differently.

As long as SMS is a defined standard as it is now, and that standard involves piping shit trough the GSM control channel and not using data (something you don't want when roaming abroad), the fact that they are priced differently is perfectly reasonable. If the price-difference itself is reasonable is another debate all together.