Linked by Cymro on Thu 21st Jan 2010 22:35 UTC
It's the most hyped device of the moment, a device that nobody has laid eyes on without an NDA death-grip. While rumour and speculation escalate (sometimes giving way to apathy), little has leaked out of Cupertino. But nobody seems to be asking whether this tablet thing will be successful or not.
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RE: Cut/copy-paste is trivial now?
by memson on Fri 22nd Jan 2010 11:10
in reply to "Cut/copy-paste is trivial now?"
Member since:2006-01-01
"Look at the fuss they made over minor missing iPhone features, because they once cut & pasted something on their WinMo or Symbian phone. The tablet is a gift.
In other words, you've never used your phone for contact or calendar management. Noted. "
Did I ever use cut/copy and paste on a mobile device prior to the fuss made by iPhone haters? Um.. YES.. at least once, every time I set up a new WinMo device, because the 'tards at Microsoft INSIST on you using it in at least WM2000, 2002 and 2003 in "welcome" app to copy an appointment - and AFAIK you can't skip that (at least I couldn't be arsed to work out how.) After that? Possibly.. not frequently enough to bust a gasket over though.
RE[2]: Cut/copy-paste is trivial now?
by winter skies on Fri 22nd Jan 2010 11:16
in reply to "RE: Cut/copy-paste is trivial now?"
Member since:2009-08-21
OH yes, I remember that.. You had to copy/paste that appointment every time the battery died on a Compaq iPaq 3130 (grayscale green-backlit display) with NO flash storage to save data or settings... very useful for playing Solitaire when I was bored, but how I desired that device! (I was little more than a young boy then).
BTW, the oooooold WinMo copy/paste menu is still better than copy/paste possibilities on Symbian S60v5 (have an N97mini).
RE: Cut/copy-paste is trivial now?
by Cymro on Fri 22nd Jan 2010 12:56
in reply to "Cut/copy-paste is trivial now?"
Member since:2005-07-07
I was being a little jocular with my wording, but my point was that the criticism was often way out of proportion. A missing feature like copy & paste didn't make the iPhone a useless toy, or nullify all its innovations, but you'd read lots of comments to that effect.
The iPad seems like even better ammunition and I'm sure it'll be used to reinforce the stereotype of a style-over-substance, more-money-than-sense Apple-user. Trendy Soho types sipping their skinny lattes and playing with their iPad... I'm not saying it's wrong - it can be pretty funny, and accurate, but this device would be perfect fodder for the critics.
RE[2]: Cut/copy-paste is trivial now?
by tupp on Sat 23rd Jan 2010 20:52
in reply to "RE: Cut/copy-paste is trivial now?"
Member since:2006-11-12
A missing feature like copy & paste didn't make the iPhone a useless toy, or nullify all its innovations...
Exactly what innovations first appeared in the Iphone? Please list them.
Also, please stop trying to spin "copy and paste" as a trivial feature. This capability was being used fairly often in smart phones long before the Iphone, as it is today.
In fact, I am glad that I am not composing this message on an Iphone, because part of my post is copied and pasted from Maddox's infamous, no-nonsense assessment of the original Iphone (and its theatrical announcement by Steve Jobs): http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=iphone
As you can see from the Maddox page, the Iphone lacks other basic features, like having a period (".") on the keyboard. To type something as simple an ellipsis ("...") with the Iphone, one originally had to tap one's finger nine times and go into a sub-screens three times.
Now there is a shortcut when typing an ellipsis with the Iphone, but one still has to go into a sub-screen, and the shortcut is so "intuitive" that this simple operation requires a tutorial: http://artoftheiphone.com/2009/06/25/iphone-basics-how-to-make-an-e...
There are plenty of other Iphone UI problems and lack of features. On the Maddox page, note the comparison chart on the between the Iphone and an old Nokia N70.
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... !!!
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... !!! (I copied and pasted this one.)
.
Edited 2010-01-23 21:00 UTC
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 23:35 UTC, submitted by kragil
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
Linked by MOS6510 on 05/17/13 22:22 UTC
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 22:15 UTC, submitted by Tom
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 21:41 UTC
Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 17:04 UTC
"But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 13:17 UTC
"Android and iOS, the number one and number two ranked smartphone operating systems worldwide, combined for 92.3% of all smartphone shipments during the first quarter of 2013 as Windows Phone crept past BlackBerry for 3rd place. According to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Android smartphone vendors and Apple shipped a total of 199.5 million units worldwide during 1Q13, up 59.1% from the 125.4 million units shipped during 1Q12." Windows Phone doubles from a few to twice few, iOS loser market share as its growth is slower than that of the overall market. BlackBerry continues slide into irrelevance.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 12:06 UTC
"According to the latest research from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies service, global Android smartphone profits reached US$5 billion in total during the first quarter of 2013. Samsung dominated and captured an impressive 95 percent share of all Android smartphone profits." Wow.More News »
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Member since:
2008-06-02
In other words, you've never used your phone for contact or calendar management. Noted.
The (implied) spin is hilarious, though: people didn't criticize the lack of cut-copy-paste because it's incredibly useful feature that has been standard on every other smartphone OS ever made, nosiree. If you consider it to be a basic, essential feature, then you're OBVIOUSLY just biased against Apple.