"Steven Schveighoffer" <schvei...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:op.vigl6wxpeav...@localhost.localdomain... > On Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:03:59 -0400, Nick Sabalausky <a...@a.a> wrote: > >> "Nick Sabalausky" <a...@a.a> wrote in message >> news:i5ov60$2c5...@digitalmars.com... >>> >>> B. Closed platforms are evil (not to be confused with closed source). > > s/evil/stable. It's one of the reasons my previous company was in > business. They built server appliances. When you control everything on > the platform, there's less things to test, less things that can go wrong, > and any bugs you fix for one customer automatically translate to all other > customers. >
In theory. In practice, I really don't believe it's quite so simple. And there's still the ethical issue. > >>> D. Service provider lock-in is evil. My phone works with *any* service >>> provider (and didn't become uselessly obsolete after a year or two): >>> http://www.uniden.com/products/productdetail.cfm?product=EXAI398 And I >>> really do like this phone a lot. > > Then I guess 99% of phones are evil? 99% of phones? Certainly not. 99% of *cell* phones? Absolutely, yes. Service provider lock-in is one of the primary reasons I've never bought one. > I also have co-workers and friends who use jailbroken iphones on other > GSM networks. In an allegedly capitalist society (or "mixed-economy with capitalist leanings" as the case may be), no one should ever have any reason to devise or use such hacks for such a basic freedom as consumer choice. > I could never do that with most of my verizon phones. Verizon is one of the worst cell companies out there anyway. > Besides, who switches phone service providers within the life of a phone? No one, but you're overlooking the *reasons* that doesn't happen: contract lock-in and hardware that's not built to last. > Not to mention that the two biggest service providers are incompatible > with eachother, so you couldn't switch between them even if you wanted > to. > If there's a fundamental difference in protocols (as opposed to the artificially-created incompatibilities), then yes, of course that's fine. However, outside the cell phone world, such situations are likely to result in dual-use devices: DVD-R and DVD+R were incompatible, but both widely used. So instead of going the absolutely idiotic cell-phone route of *maintaining* a dividing chasm, they just made devices support both. And I don't believe "extra cost" is necessarily a good argument against this practice, because of how quickly dual+/- DVD player/burner prices became dirt cheap. >>> E. A die-hard Apple fan I know recently showed me his beloved iPad. >>> Accurately setting the text-cursor was nearly impossible. But that would >>> have been an incredibly simple fix: Use a screen that worked with a >>> stylus >>> or fingernail. There's millions of them out there. Even if that would >>> have >>> prevented multi-touch (and I don't know that it would or would not >>> have), >>> after using the multi-touch, I felt it added no real value other than a >>> "gee-whiz" gimmick factor. Stylus/fingernail support would have added at >>> least some real value. > > Your friend is doing it wrong. Well, I was the one using it and noticing that. > I can accurately set the cursor whenever I want using the magnifying > glass. > > See an example here: > http://my.safaribooksonline.com/9781430231295/typing_numbers_and_symbols > That's nothing more than a workaround. How is that *not* worse than being able to just use the tip of your fingernail? >>> F. Like all Apple software, the software on the iPad/iPhone are >>> appallingly slim on settings/options. > > *shrug* Most of the settings suit me well. What options do you miss? > I admit, "I don't remember" and "I'd have to use it more to see". But I have spent a fair amount of time with other Apple products. I even used OSX as my primary system for about a year or two. And (aside from the Apple II, which obviously doesn't quite count) there has never been a piece of Apple software I've used more than a little for which I haven't found large amounts of things that would be ideal as setting or even obvious as settings but were sorely lacking. Same goes for features (such as the iPod/iTunes's inexcusable lack of Vorbis support, and for a *long* time iTunes couldn't read CD audio if track 1 was data (which was not entirely uncommon) but everything else could). So judging by the very sparse options on the iPad, I have fairly strong reason to believe it would be the same. >>> G. A *phone* without tactile dial buttons is just plain wrong. What is >>> it >>> with Apple's long-standing war against tactile feedback? It detracts >>> from >>> usability and the only thing it adds is high-tech-gee-whiz-gimmick. > > What do you need tactile feedback for? See, now I just can't even fathom that kind of stance, so it's difficult for me to argue against it. For me it's just a fundamental thing: With tactile feedback > without tactile feedback, by a large degree. > You get audible feedback, and the phone number buttons are extremely > responsive. > Plus, if you want to dial without looking at the phone, you can use > voice-activation. > That hardly makes it better to not have tactile feedback. > Blackberry tried a touch-screen with tactile feedback, it sucked. > Which is exactly why it's idiotic for Apple to make the entire interface touchscreen. You do that and you lose tactile feedback and you can't just hack it back in. If you took my Palm Pilot, replaced the up/down/left/right and app buttons with touchscreen input, that would be a step *backwards*. You'd gain nothing but a questionable "cool factor", and the UI would just simply be worse. >>> H. What's there to protect the highly-prominent screen? > > The screen is made of pretty durable glass. Like all touch-screen phones, > it's highly advisable to get a screen protector for it. I don't get what > your problem is here, do you want a screen or not? If you do, then what > possible way could a manufacturer design a destruction-proof screen? Put > little airbags around it in case you drop it? > Oh, please, it's not that difficult to come up with ways around it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laptop http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Boy_Advance_SP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_DS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip_phone Or a different approach: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tablet_PC#Convertibles And other things can no doubt be thought up, especially if Apple is as clever as people claim they are. Or hell, a built-in or even just pre-packaged protector. This is *far* from an insurmountable obstacle. >>> I. I don't give a crap how thin they can make it. But Apple seems to >>> think >>> I should care. Heck, I don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on >>> something that I'll constantly feel I'm about to accidentally snap in >>> half. But that's exactly how I felt with the iPad. > > This is petty :) In and of itself, maybe. But thinness typically necessitates other design compromises, all for a "benefit" that is, as you say, petty. > I can't speak for the ipad, but the iphone feels more durable than any > phone I've had. Maybe you'd prefer this phone: > http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20100829/BIZ/708299922/1005/biz > I don't understand what you mean. According to that it's even thinner than Apple's stuff. But it does make me think of another thing: a perfectly flat rectangle (with a touchscreen on the side against your head) is a rather awkward form factor for a phone (and I have tried such phones, like my sister's Palm...umm, the other WebOS one that isn't a Pre). My phone is far more comfortable: http://www.uniden.com/products/productdetail.cfm?product=EXAI398 > Note that the ipad directly competes with e-Reader devices, so they need > to appeal to those people too. > That still doesn't necessitate "as thin as conceivably possible". >> >> J. What happens when the battery gets old and won't hold a charge? > > When I was looking at getting a palm pre as a verizon customer, and I > discovered that palm pre doesn't support voice dialing, I mentioned I'd > just be switching to AT&T for the iPhone. The Verizon guy identified the > battery issue as a reason not to get one. So I looked up the details. I > think apple provides a $100 service to change your battery. I don't know > the details, but I think they just swap out your entire phone. If they > don't swap out your phone, that's crappy, but I can't complain yet because > it hasn't happened to me ;) > > $100 is pretty steep, but most phone batteries cost $40-60, so it's not > unreasonable. I think by making the battery internal they can make it > more powerful and make the device smaller (sorry, some of us like the > small size ;). > I honestly find the vast majority of cell phones to be *too* small. Problematically so. (And yes, I *have* used a number of cell phones, even though I've never owned one) Small is obviously good to a certain point...but...well, only to a certain point. Sorry, but some of us don't like super-small ;) > I also have read if you don't care about your warranty or your warranty is > expired, you can buy an actual iphone battery online for about $20 and a > kit for $10 more so you can change it yourself. > Which only goes to prove that the typical $40-100 you mentioned above *is* exorbitant. Furthermore, there is absolutely *no* excuse for a company pushing a device that you actually have to *hack* just to change the damn battery. >>> That's a lot of issues for something that's supposedly well-polished. > > Wait, most of these aren't actual problems, but just design decisions you > disagree with. In fact, only one is a bug (the iphone 4 antenna problem), > which has already been addressed. I didn't say it was buggy, I said it wasn't polished. A big part of polish *is* having solid *design decisions*. Many people seem to think polish is just gloss, glitz and gimmick. > "I hate how they think they're so cool because their devices are thin" > isn't even a problem, its just a form of name calling. > My stance did *not* amount to that, and I've added another reason above. > Note that for all these "problems" you mentioned, the iphone's good > features are *really* good. Even the tiny details have thought put into > them. One example: I listen to music at work with the enclosed headphones > (w/ mic and volume control inline on the wire), and I listen to it low, so > I can hear when other people want to talk to me. When I get in the car, I > have to turn the volume on the iphone all the way up to normalize the > input to the stereo. > > I noticed that once I set the respective volumes, I didn't have to change > them -- the iphone knows the difference between the two headphone types > and auto-adjusts the volume to the last setting. It's one of those > features that is trivial, but just make the iphone a pleasant experience. > Yea, I never said there wasn't anything good about it. Hell, I'll even admit the iPad was a lot better than I expected. I'd still never buy one though. Oh, I completely forgot, there's another iPad issue: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/04/ipad-fails-networking-101-how-to-earn-it-a-passing-grade.ars The guy I know that has an iPad, he was at a hotel once where there just happend to be a bunch of other iPad users on the hotel's WiFi network. It brought the whole network to a crawl - slower than dial-up from what he was saying. > I'll tell you a few things that I've found annoying: > > 1. I disabled downloading graphics in emails (as everyone should), but in > emails I know are not spam, I want to download the images. There is no > button for that... Lack of basic settings, features or any sort of customizability. > 2. A couple times, the phone had a hard time connecting to a wireless > network that it previously had no problem with. It mistakes a bad signal > with a bad password, so it asks you for the password. If you don't hit > "cancel" and just hit "ok", it forgets the password that it used to have. > I then have to go look up the password as it's some hex string. Lack of polish, and frankly, sounds downright rushed. > 3. The calendar app doesn't allow you to jump ahead quickly by months or > years. This is annoying when setting a future appointment. You can > quickly scroll via the day, they should give you wheels to do the month > and year also. > Very *blatant* lack of polish. Jumping by month/year is just plain obvious for any calender app. It's exactly these sorts of appallingly *obvious* things that Apple constantly gets wrong anyway, and in fairly large quantities, that make me say "Apple's sense of 'polish' is little more than gimmicks and graphic design." Showing attention to detail on one or two things here and there, but then utterly failing on the basics (consistently) - that's not polish. ------------------------------- Not sent from an iPhone.
