January 2010 - gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

Re: The REAL Question About the iPad. . . .
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 28 Jan '10

28 Jan '10

michael said: > I am considering getting one > if the new announcement > includes iPhones for Verizon if you don't have one by this summer, and you'd settle for a first-gen iphone, i will have one i can give you for free... -bowerbird

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Re: iPad Complaints received so far:
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 28 Jan '10

28 Jan '10

anything said about sync capability between the ipad and your computer and your iphone? -bowerbird

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iPad Complaints received so far:
by Michael S. Hart 28 Jan '10

28 Jan '10

No Adobe Flash No Camera No VOIP [Skype, Vonage, etc] No battery swapping!!! No outboard memory!!! No comment on bundling data plans No mention of resolution levels

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New "iPad" From Apple
by Michael S. Hart 28 Jan '10

28 Jan '10

It looks and acts a lot like a huge iPhone, most apps work ok, but some tweaking is required to optimal results. In case you aren't keeping up with this live: 9.7" screen 1.5 pounds .5" thick 10 hour battery 1Ghz processor up to 64G RAM "n" wifi bluetooth no 3G or 4G In addition the 250 millionth iPod was sold around New Year's. No mention of how many iPhones.

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Re: iPad Complaints received so far:
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 28 Jan '10

28 Jan '10

david said: > Nothing revolutionary to see here.. see? what a pile of crap! apple is reinventing the computer experience, right under his nose, and david insists there is "nothing revolutionary to see here"... david must be blind. -bowerbird

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on your planet
by bowerbird＠aol.com 28 Jan '10

28 Jan '10

david said: > it's just going to be a smaller version of > a keyboardless Macbook Air > with ebooks available through iTunes. man, wouldn't that be something, even all by itself! the very first thing i wanted to do when i lifted up a macbook air was to rip off that stupid keyboard. (but i didn't think the employees there in the apple store would fully appreciate my marvelous gesture.) > Nothing really revolutionary to see here, unless it > out-does what the Nook, Que, Alex or similar devices > are doing. Judging from what we've seen from Apple lately, > I wouldn't put much faith in it changing the industry hey dude, i don't know where you're from, but here on planet earth the ipod revolutionized how the masses listened to (and bought) music, and the iphone revolutionized so-called "smart" phones (which had been quite retarded before) and put the web (the _real_ web) in our pockets, which was the biggest revolution of all of these. and now they've set the table to do it all _again_, not just changing "the industry", but _the_world_. but again, this is here on planet earth, so please, mr. alien man, tell us what it's like on your planet. -bowerbird

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Re: iPad Details
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 28 Jan '10

28 Jan '10

michael said: > Supposedly NOT plain text file!!! don't forget that the thing runs iphone apps. so the eucalyptus app -- which pulls down plain-text files from project gutenberg and formats them, quite nicely, on the fly -- will run on the ipad just fine, along with all the other e-reader apps, like stanza... don't get too wrapped up in what "native" apple-supplied apps will (or will not) do... > What's the split between iPod and iPhone? don't get tripped up in all the terminology. there are 250 million ipods out in the world. those are just music-players. they don't count. there are 75 million iphone/itouch machines... the "itouch" is also called "an ipod touch", and it's basically an iphone without the phone part. (and yes, every iphone has an ipod in it as well.) i think the basic split is 50 million _iphones_ and 25 million _itouch_ machines, but the itouch trend line is even steeper than iphone. *** michael said: > From Ohio: > > > No camera was a killer non-app > > No outboard flash was a killer non-app > > No outboard drives was a killer non-app > > No DRM free options was a killer. . . . > > Lots of reasons this person won't buy one. as usual, the people who do not buy a product do not matter. it's the people who _do_ buy it -- especially the _number_ of people who buy it, and what they think after using it -- that matters... -bowerbird

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More iPad Complaints
by Michael S. Hart 28 Jan '10

28 Jan '10

>From Ohio: No camera was a killer non-app No outboard flash was a killer non-app No outboard drives was a killer non-app No DRM free options was a killer. . . . Lots of reasons this person won't buy one.

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Re: Holst's Planets
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 28 Jan '10

28 Jan '10

oh well, might as well continue this little thread... i hope everyone realizes that michael and i don't really disagree as much as all this rhetoric seems. *** michael said: > However, if you buy one like that AFTER doing homework, > that's between you and your psychiatrist. i never bought one of the steaming pile of crap phones... not to do web-browsing, anyway. i just went without web. > Don't forget I said don't get one without wifi. how could i forget it when you repeat it so frequently? :+) but, as i said, i just went without the web on my phone. and so did tens of millions of other people. my point... > The phone in question here has an unlimited data plan > for some $35 a month, seems reasonable to me. > Then again, I'm not sure that plan is still available, > other than grandfathered in. well, your ability to sniff out bargains is well-documented. but others of us are not blessed with that particular gift... (i was kissed by the queen angel of parking spaces myself.) > Only the millions you left out of your research samples. i granted you _one_ million, and even that was stretching it. > Don't you ever listen??? > I've said for ages, "Don't buy a cellphone without wifi!" even if i only listened 10% of the time (and i listen a lot more), i would have heard you say that, since you've said it for ages... > Still, even as a phone, if you use wifi for data, no charges. the experience wasn't worth it! even if the bandwidth was free! > Wake up!!! i'm as awake as i'm gonna be at this time of night... :+) > Sites? > Were we talking about sites? > I thot we were talking about phones! oh, ok, i see where we had our disconnect. i was talking about "cell-phone optimized websites", yes, since for many phones, that was the only way they could adequately access the web, via sites that had been dumbed down to the point where they were simple text-menus only. those dumbed-down sites were light on bandwidth and didn't need any processing power. of course, they weren't the "real" web, but they were the best those phones could do. let me ask a question. for your current phone, the one you are talking about with the $35/month unlimited data plan, and wifi, can you access the front page of the n.y. times site? do you see all of the pictures? can you click on all the links? and if you can, how long does it take that front page to load? can you get wikipedia? or are you shunted to an "alternative" version which has been dumbed-down for cell-phone access? > An interesting POV. > I'm not sure it's got any factual backing, but interesting. > What about AT&T? Or are you counting them? it's not a "p.o.v.". it's how the history went down, michael. steve wanted verizon, because they were acknowledged as "best". but verizon turned him down flat, flat as a pancake. then he tried sprint, but they wouldn't give him a deal either. so at&t was his only other option. they were so desperate, for any business, that they basically couldn't turn him down. of course, all of us users have been totally dissatisfied with at&t, because they haven't been able to get their act together, despite the huge influx of business (and respect) from iphone. steve hung with them for quite a while, longer than he should, but the word on the street is that their exclusivity is now gone. > Actually, all The Billionaire Boys Club are betting against you. > As you may recall, I starting predicting years and years ago, > when cellphones first reached 50% saturation levels, that the > new wave of cellphones would be more wild new features. . . . i'm still waiting. but i'm afraid that day is still off in the future. these carrier companies are so used to having captive "customers" that they don't really even _know_ how to engage in competition, and they all understand that as long as their collusion remains impossible to prove directly, they can milk all of their cash cows. for years and years, they played the "minutes" game with us, and even now, they think it's a big deal to knock $30 off their $99 plan for unlimited _voice_ for a month. but that's still a whopping $69. > So who else is going to be allowed to provide for iPhones??? the rumor-mill says verizon will get the iphone in addition to at&t. i'm guessing half (or more) of the people who have suffered through the at&t exclusivity period will switch to verizon as soon as they can. > Didn't I use the plural? no, you said "million", for that phone you own. > Are iPhones up to 5% of cellphones yet? > I think not [and vanished in a puff of greasy black smoke!] > Actually, I would be surprised if even much over half that! another big disconnect between us here... because certainly the percentage of _cellphones_ doesn't matter, not if we're throwing dumb-phones into the mix. i'm sure we'll get the updated figures during apple's press conference wednesday, but i think the iphone has about 40% of the smart-phone market today in the countries where it has been available for a while... even more important, the trend-lines show that it's still surging, while all the other smart-phones are holding steady or dropping. but the really startling statistic is that 80% of smart-phone bandwidth is being generated by iphone users, meaning they use their phones to navigate the web _twice_ as much as owners of other smart-phones... > It's cute. . .no one says not. oh please. spare yourself the indignity of backhanded "compliments". the iphone is a lot more than "cute". it has revolutionized the future. > It's just not even 5% of the market, maybe half that. . . . only if you define "market" in a completely nonsensical way. the iphone isn't competing against giveaway dumb-phones. > Seems to be following the Mac statistics. maybe you need to brush up on those statistics as well. mac has 90% of the market for machines costing $1000+. the only people buying p.c. hardware these days are the people who have very little use for a _real_ computer... they just want to check their e-mail and surf the web, and maybe watch t.v. or a movie... and guess what? that's exactly what apple's itablet is gonna let them do. (jobs owns pixar, of course, and is the biggest shareholder in disney, so that's the movie angle. but disney also owns a.b.c., so jobs has a direct interest in the future of t.v. too, and that's why movie/t.v. will be the big thrust of the itablet. in addition to bridging the gap between iphone and mac air.) > Now iPods, that a different thing. . .heaven knows why, > since there are SO many MP3 players working so well. "heaven knows why"? you really think it's a big mystery? it's no mystery at all. but i explained all of that in my _original_reply_ to walter, which i will send tomorrow. in a nutshell here now, though, what is interesting is how apple cannibalized its own ipod line with the touch, which is essentially the iphone without the phone part (so it boils down to the same form-factor as your phone, michael, with wifi access but with no phone capability.) that ipod touch -- with its dependence on wifi -- broke free from the tyranny of the 2-year carrier-contract, and basically puts the web in your pocket without access costs. now i would've thought this would be a non-starter, since i'm not willing to carry around a touch _and_ a phone, but lots of people apparently _are_ willing to do exactly that, and apple hooked in those people, and that's pretty cool. > You just haven't see all the Euro-phones on the streets. . . . it's not hard for me to imagine a world where _everyone_ is carrying around the web in their pocket all of the time... i've had that idea for about 30 years now, which i concede doesn't match the 50 years that you've got under your belt, but i think it's still a long-enough time to nurture a dream. -bowerbird

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The REAL Question About the iPad. . . .
by Michael S. Hart 28 Jan '10

28 Jan '10

I guess the real question about the iPad is whether it will change tablets, eReaders, etc., in the same manner as iPods changed MP3 players and iPhones changed cellphones. While I do have some MP3 players, and one is even an iPod-- the Third Generation one--I haven't found that iPod changed MP3ness for me at all, other than that the eBook reader app came out only a week after the iPod, which was very cool!!! I'm also not sure the iPhone changed cellphones for me much though I am considering getting one if the new announcement includes iPhones for Verizon, which it appears to be. I am sure the cost will be high to start with, so even if I will get an iPhone it won't be rush right down today. Personally, I thought Blackberry changed cellphones, Nokia, too, and a few others. iPhones and iPods just added "COOL" to the mix, which is fine with me, but I don't know if this really counts as a technological breakthrough, and I do not know if iPhones really were the CAUSE or the EFFECT of this new saturation level of cellphones. Well. . .yes. . .I do know. . . . If you will recall I have been watching cellphone levels as much as I watched disc drive growth, and I predicted that a new kind of cellphone competition would start to take place as soon as the world realized we had passed 50% saturation, and it is all too obvious that the iPhone was the result. Still, I can't fault Steve Jobs for really being the "ONLY" big one who really realized this tipping point was coming!

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