Thread: The world according to Steve Jobs

Dear Steve (may I call you Stevie?),

your phone is cool. And partially useful. I can make calls and surf the net to find out what that stuff on my pizza actually is before ordering it and before looking like an idiot for asking the waiter. I like it. It shines, it has power, it's the sports car of computers.

But Stevie, have you had a look at the size of the thing... err... price of the thing? It's huge. It's not a moon, it's a whole fscking space station! The only retailer in Germany wants ~550$ for the phone if (and only if) you pay ~70$ monthly fees for 24 months straight. That's about 2.000$. For a freaking phone with an internet flatrate. I can get the same internet flatrate fixed at my home for 15$/month, which would leave about 1600$ for the biggest, baddest gaming machine I ever owned. Or I could pay 5$ a month and 50$ for a new phone that can just make calls and play mp3s and spend the other 1800$ on something worthwhile. Like a used car. Or a badass TV. Or anything else, that is not just a phone, "i" or not.

My PC might be a truck. But then, it didn't cost a fortune like sport cars do. Should I ever have "too much money", I will buy a real sports car. Not a phone.

Best regards
Your Ex-Future-Customer that had a look at the price...

Originally Posted by cyberfish

Android also uses Java, but sadly doesn't support J2ME libraries, so not portable.

Yes, but attention. Android wants itself to be portable. It's a crucial difference from all the others which actually don't.

Anyways, IPads. It's just another concept, cool as it may be. And even cooler when other players start entering the market with their own Tablet PCs and we get some competition going. It's however just a concept. Just another way to serve generations of computer and internet users. Not a killer device in any possible way. People will still need phones because they are smaller, and desktops because they offer the best productivity across the whole spectrum of possible uses we give to a computer.

I personally don't see me ever owning a table PC, however. The other reason why this isn't a killer device is because, for the largest majority of people, this is an entirely useless device. Naturally I'd expect Steve Jobs to do his marketing fanfare and to extrapolate from the initial sales a world revolution. After all we live in a world where commercials try to convince you will lead a happier life if you wash your dishes with X.

But reality is far more stringent. The iPad benefits from an early launch, without alternatives and from a new device concept. And that's that. It's however very flawed both in concept and performance. The biggest problems are that it's unwieldy and it suffers from a rabid closed architecture; the Apple staple, and why this company always plummets to the second division of hardware manufacturers once the market shapes up itself and offers alternatives to Apple products.

But, more importantly, iPad sales do tell the truth about this device. They say, for instance, that more people bought Netbooks in these months than they did iPads. That more people bought laptops in these months than they did iPads. That more people bought desktop PCs than they did iPads. So... yeah. No revolution. Not even a hiccup.

Originally Posted by nvoigt

Dear Steve (may I call you Stevie?),

your phone is cool. And partially useful. I can make calls and surf the net to find out what that stuff on my pizza actually is before ordering it and before looking like an idiot for asking the waiter. I like it. It shines, it has power, it's the sports car of computers.

But Stevie, have you had a look at the size of the thing... err... price of the thing? It's huge. It's not a moon, it's a whole fscking space station! The only retailer in Germany wants ~550$ for the phone if (and only if) you pay ~70$ monthly fees for 24 months straight. That's about 2.000$. For a freaking phone with an internet flatrate. I can get the same internet flatrate fixed at my home for 15$/month, which would leave about 1600$ for the biggest, baddest gaming machine I ever owned. Or I could pay 5$ a month and 50$ for a new phone that can just make calls and play mp3s and spend the other 1800$ on something worthwhile. Like a used car. Or a badass TV. Or anything else, that is not just a phone, "i" or not.

My PC might be a truck. But then, it didn't cost a fortune like sport cars do. Should I ever have "too much money", I will buy a real sports car. Not a phone.

Best regards
Your Ex-Future-Customer that had a look at the price...

Have you actually sent this to Steve? You could. I think his email is [email protected], right?

Yeah, the only thing I have a problem with is being told we all MUST do everything one way. If some/most people find a mouse or touchpad more effective than a keyboard for what they are doing on a computer, that's great. Vive la differance.

There is, it can run code natively on the ARM CPU. However, I don't think it has a UI library, so it's mostly for java programs to offload heavy calculations to C/C++. There is a supposedly easy way to interface java and C++.

I may very well be wrong.

EDIT: and there is an "Android Scripting Environment (ASE) which allows third-party developers to build simple Android applications with Python and Lua."

Ouch, check this out:

Privacy Change: Apple Knows Where Your Phone Is And Is Telling People - The Consumerist

Apple updated its privacy policy today, with an important, and dare we say creepy new paragraph about location information. If you agree to the changes, (which you must do in order to download anything via the iTunes store) you agree to let Apple collect store and share "precise location data, including the real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device."

The fact that they can get away with this is evidence of just how stupid and complacent your average consumer is.

People not being able to opt-out without that affecting their decision to buy from Apple store is what makes this policy the more invasive. It's not clear if this affects just the iTunes store or the whole gatekeeper. But regardless, for a consumer that isn't interested in using location-based services and products, they apparently will still be forced to agree to those terms.

Originally Posted by MK27

The fact that they can get away with this is evidence of just how stupid and complacent your average consumer is.

Yeah. The whole of Apple existence, starting around the mid 90s, has been essentially based on consumer illiteracy and consumer greed. And it has never been so strong since Apple started the smart phone business. There will always be a market -- a big market -- for useless devices and terms of service meant to circumvent consumer loyalty and go after a much quicker and more effective consumer slavery. And especially since gadgets became the equivalent of a social penis.

Originally Posted by MK27

Ouch, check this out:

Privacy Change: Apple Knows Where Your Phone Is And Is Telling People - The Consumerist



The fact that they can get away with this is evidence of just how stupid and complacent your average consumer is.

That is not the quote from the agreement! This is it:

To provide location-based services on Apple products, Apple and our partners and licensees may collect, use, and share precise location data, including the real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device. This location data is collected anonymously in a form that does not personally identify you and is used by Apple and our partners and licensees to provide and improve location-based products and services. For example, we may share geographic location with application providers when you opt in to their location services.

So, as you see, a device that have geo location capability can do this, it goes for all phones that have gps, obviously. If you think that this is proof of the stupidity of the average consumer, id say the stupidity is not recognizing that using geo-location software shares your location, that's the point, duh!