Posted on 06/06/2011 12:35:21 PM PDT by ctdonath2
Apple introduced OS X Lion, iOS 5, and iCloud today. Lots of articles at the link and elsewhere.
The major software manufacturers and American carriers have all agreed to Google’s demand that phones get software updates for 18 months. It is a definite improvement. The carriers in the US have been the major hold up because they want you to buy a new phone and extend your contract. They have to add the bloat after the manufacturers update their skins. It is a tedious process.
A cheap Android isn’t a good comparison to an iPhone. I would say the flagship models from the major manufacturers, Moto Atrix, Samsung Galaxy S 2 and HTC EVO (or Sensation now maybe) or at least equal to the iPhone. In some respects they are probably better depending on your needs.
Saving and editing contacts is not hard although I think the option to save to the phone or SIM is dumb when the logical choice is to save to your Google account, but that only requires paying attention.
If it were up to me, they all would run stock Froyo, Gingerbread, Ice Cream Sandwich, whatever...I can’t think of a single carrier specific app that I ever use. I don’t really use the manufacturer skins or launcher either. I like my phone to be the way ***I*** want it. That’s what’s nice about the Nexus phones...no bloat, just stock Android with updates as soon as Google pushes them out the door.
No, it is GEEKY... but I have better uses for my time and my brain than spending it kowtowing to the foibles of another gadget to make it work right. I've been there and done that... and so have many others. When I was younger, I had the time to devote to it. Now, my time is much more valuable to me. I have little patience for a company that makes me be the beta tester for their poorly designed operating systems. At least with Windows in the past the customers PAID me to fix its foibles and clean up its messes. Android users don't like to pay for anything... even their apps.
Remind me where the majority of all computer components are made again?
Where are ALL of the profits from your Samsung phones retained? At least Apple is an American company... Samsung is traded on the Korean Stock Exchange in Wons, not Dollars... and you repeatedly push their products? Google makes very little on Android... they GIVE it away.
“No, it is GEEKY... but I have better uses for my time and my brain than spending it kowtowing to the foibles of another gadget to make it work right.”
Apparently comprehending the English language is on the same level as installing a custom ROM for you. It’s to make it work BETTER, not right. Using your logic, those people who jailbreak their iPhones are “Geeky”. No, they’re not. They want INCREASED functionalilty from their devices. I had to jailbreak the iPhones I had to be able to wireless tether. And since the phones couldn’t tether out of the box, using your logic, I guess that means the phones didn’t work right, huh?
I had to root my Android phone to be able to tether without having to pay the carrier to do something the phone is already capable of doing.
To call that “GEEKY” is to put your ignorance and/or laziness on display.
“Remind me where the majority of all computer components are made again?
Where are ALL of the profits from your Samsung phones retained? At least Apple is an American company... Samsung is traded on the Korean Stock Exchange in Wons, not Dollars... and you repeatedly push their products? Google makes very little on Android... they GIVE it away.”
Is there a point to your ridiculous ramblings anywhere in that?
If there is, it must be something like this...”Since Apple is traded on out stock market, you should give more of your money to Steve Jobs. It’s the patriotic thing to do.”
That’s what you just said.
That's good, although it's non-binding and it doesn't help me. Luckily I'm a geek so I can handle rooting it and flashing new ROM. Most others are screwed.
BTW, why do we call it ROM? It's not read-only, since we can easily write to it.
It’s a phone, a consumer device. Anything more than “press this button to update your phone” is geeky. I’m a geek, I can do it, but I recognize most people aren’t. In addition, people with the intelligence to potentially do it may not want to for fear of bricking their phone, losing official support (which they will), invalidating warranties, etc.
You can root an Android or an iPhone, but you have to keep that separated, in a geek context. For the majority of users it is not a replacement for automatic, supported updates from the manufacturer or carrier.
The skins are of varying usefulness. Those not inclined to tinker probably like them more. You can get most of the usefulness from other apps if you so choose. I believe it is Acer who allows you to choose to use their skin on bootup which I think is genius and should be a requirement for all manufacturers.
As for the carrier stuff, I guess the one benefit is that it could help lower the cost of the phone. I’m still crossing my fingers that T-Mobile gets a pretty standard SGS II, but $800 to get it off contract is a pretty high price. I can deal with some bloat to bring that down to $500 or so.
I was worried about bricking mine at first. Once I was comfortable with how to do it, those fears went away. If more people were aware of the advantages of rooting/jailbreaking, I’m sure more people would be doing it. With my iPhone, I started hearing some people I know talking about it and I asked them what it was. When they first told me, I didn’t really see the point of it. As time passed, they started showing me things that their phone was capable of and mine wasn’t (namely tethering among others). Apple tries to stifle the jailbreaking with nearly every update they push, but the jailbreak devs always find a way around it. Android manufacturers started locking down bootloaders...HTC to be the latest one, but after the huge outcry, they changed their minds.
Yeah, it’s just what Launcher you decide to use. The manufacturers all have their own stuff. HTC has Sense, Motorola has Motoblur, Samsung has Touchwiz, Sony has the Arc.
Amazon has the SGS II for $699 off contract. I’m expecting it to be the typical $200 once it starts hitting US carriers. The MSRP on my handset was ridiculously high when it was released too, but obviously I didn’t pay that.
If more people knew about the advantages of putting a custom ECU mapping in their car, mo--, no, just about the same number of people as now would be doing it. It's a gearhead thing, not a regular driver thing.
I disagree. I’m a perfect example. I had no idea what jailbreaking/rooting were and saw no point/purpose in doing so at first until I had it explained to me.
Flashing your car’s computer is much different that clicking a few buttons on your phone/PC.
Another point...you can go into the classifieds and find people who will do the root/jailbreaking for you for a fee.
The market for it is out there and as I’ve been saying all along, it’s a matter of either stupidity, laziness, or both.
The rooting/jailbreaking process is down to the point where it’s nothing more than downloading a program, plugging in your phone, and clicking a button. People are going to PAY someone to do that? REALLY? They’re that dumb or that lazy? You have perform more steps then that to setup what you want synced in iTunes.
Not really that hard. On most cars it's as simple as replacing a small board in a slot on your ECU. It's still not a basic user function. It's for the more advanced or more daring.
The biggest holdup is who do you go to for help when it fails? Hope the online forums will help? What do you do if you bricked it? Your carrier certainly won't help you, neither will the manufacturer. If you keep it stock, you can get the phone re-flashed at the carrier, or just get a free replacement. No matter how well the process has been packaged and simplified by those (admittedly very talented) modders, it's still hacking, and it comes with risks.
Try explaining “rooting” to somebody who thinks “rootkit” comes in a box that says “Clairol”.
“Not really that hard. On most cars it’s as simple as replacing a small board in a slot on your ECU. It’s still not a basic user function. It’s for the more advanced or more daring.”
Not really that easy on my F-150 (a very popular vehicle). You actually had to disconnect the battery. Disconnect and remove the computer completely from the vehicle, open the case, scrape off some protective silicone on the leads, reistall the computer, plug in the programmer, and reconnect the battery. I’m going to consider that a little more complicated and a little more risk-involved than rooting/jailbreaking a phone.
Actually, I’ve seen a couple very experienced users over at XDA who bricked their phones due to a bad flash or something along those lines.
They just went to the store, played “dumb” and just said “it doesn’t work”. Both had their phones replace with no questions.
Lucky them. Still, above the normal user profile. IOW, buy a consumer product, use it according to the user manual that came with it. Anything beyond that is tinkering, hacking, whatever you call it for that particular product. Flashing is not in the user manual, and not supported under warranty, do at your own risk.
In the end, it's okay to compare different ROMs, or Android vs. iPhone flashing. You're on the same playing field. But a flashed one vs. another one that is stock isn't. You can no longer compare the two when talking about the overall market, because only a minuscule percentage of people will be flashing. Oh yes, tens of thousands of people are flashing, but out of tens of millions of smartphones sold every year.
“In the end, it’s okay to compare different ROMs, or Android vs. iPhone flashing. You’re on the same playing field. But a flashed one vs. another one that is stock isn’t. You can no longer compare the two when talking about the overall market, because only a minuscule percentage of people will be flashing. Oh yes, tens of thousands of people are flashing, but out of tens of millions of smartphones sold every year.”
Yes, and those people that don’t must be OK with their gimped phones. I’m not. Ignorance really is bliss.
It's not a matter of being okay with a gimped phone, or not having the acumen to flash. It's about not wanting to go outside of the fully supported comfort zone of regular user. Apple has been so incredibly successful because they turned what used to be geek toys into regular user devices, consumer appliances. People like that comfort, and few stray outside of it. This is especially true in high-tech devices, where people are scared to fiddle with the magic that makes things work.
Admittedly, "regular user" changes. Few people these days would open up the back of their TV to see what's broken. Forty years ago, we'd pull off the back panel and take a few tubes to the drugstore to put on a tester strip at the counter. We'd buy a replacement tubes, go home, and stick them in. But even then not everybody was comfortable with that. Roving repairmen were common, and they had suitcases with all of the most common tubes, and would replace yours at home.
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