Bart's Profile

Funny, I've never been a fan of Safari until Leopard came out (I hated brushed metal), and since Firefox 3 came out I've switched to Safari completely. If you read http://webkit.org/blog/ , from a web developer's point of view Safari is doing amazing things (which will carry over to everyone else using Safari). They keep adding things that are leaps ahead of Firefox and I personally find Firefox a lot bulkier and slower (even with most of its extensions disabled). I think Firefox is really shooting themselves in the foot by not moving towards having a good mobile browser sooner. Google's going to use WebKit in Android and so are a bunch of other companies like Nokia. It just seems like there's a lot more excitement happening with Safari and not so much so with Firefox (whose quasi-Mac / quasi-Vista interface on Mac just looks aweful to most people I know). And pretty soon JavaScript is going to be crazy fast with SquirrelFish... Lots of sites like Gmail will benefit from that.

I bought a G5 iMac in June 2005 and I knew that with the Intels coming out, my computer might not be upgradable for very long. I'm surprised my computer works with Leopard as well as it does and there's no way I'd want to do another upgrade on top of that. I will still be able to keep and install 99% of Mac software out there, so I don't think it'll be a big deal for me to wait for a new computer before I have Snow Leopard. It's not like Apple's going to stop you from using your computer when the new OS comes out. You just won't be able to get the new version optimized for newer computers. People who want to buy a new version of Windows get screwed over a lot more easily and a lot less justifiably.

This article is so silly and pointless. > Apple’s intentions are locking down the iPhone and iPod Touch to deter > any sort of added functionality; what you get is what’s in the box Is there anything you get with the Zune that's *not* in the box?? > The Zune, on the other hand, had its software upgraded to that of the > newer interface shipping on all new models. Tell me, would Apple think > of upgrading their older iPods in such a way? Apple does this all the time, as long as the product isn't significantly older or outdated. The Zune has been out for how long? Apple has stated from the beginning that they'll be adding new features to future upgrades of the iPhone, and they already have with the Wifi iTunes store and a bunch of other things. > Why is it that I can add a new calendar entry on my iPhone but when > I turn to the iPod Touch Does the Zune even come with a calendar?! > The current trend in technology is the convergence of devices; why not > make a Windows Mobile phone combined with the Zune. Because Windows Mobile isn't that great? Even before the iPhone, I'd refuse to buy any phones with WM on them. > When it all comes down to it, Apple will want you locked in to their > proprietary platform while Microsoft will take a different approach. Because Microsoft doesn't lock you into anything? First they take over the market, then once they have a lot of marketshare everything goes down the drain. Web developers have been struggling with IE for a long time until Microsoft got scared of Firefox.

If your definition of a smartphone is just that it's something that lets you install applications, then there's no reason to continue this argument. The point is that the iPhone contains a very advanced operating system that *can* do that (but Apple chooses not to support that ability) and will have many other functionalities beyond that of a regular phone, along with a typing mechanism. That quote from Steve Jobs at Engadget was his way of saying that the iPhone is a simple device like other Apple products and it will not try to be a cluttered "everything but the kitchen sink" device. 3.33 is the RAZR's "talk time" which is the iPhone specification you decided to harp on. The battery of the phone can of course last a lot longer if it's just turned on and you're not using it (i.e. the "standy time", which I'm sure the iPhone has more than 5 hours of as well). If you want to play that game, then the iPhone's battery life is "5 to 16 hours". I dare you to find someone with the battery that came with a RAZR V3c or V3m who can have a conversation for longer than 3.33 hours without their battery dieing. You were surprised by the iPhone's talk time (which is greater than this), but yet one of the most popular phones has 1.66 fewer hours of talk time and doesn't even come close to having the number of features and technological sophistication that the iPhone has.

From an ethical perspective, I found this article really insulting. What next, are you going to do a feature comparison between the iPod Nano and the Micromaxx MM42452 ( http://www.engadget.com/2004/11/26/the-micromaxx-mm42452-is-not-an-ipod-mini-ripoff-except-that/ ) or the countless other knockoffs of Apple products? I can't foresee a more blatant rip-off of an iPhone than this Meizu M8. These are NOT competing products. And the fact that the author of this doesn't see the iPhone as anything more than a regular phone (though you might want to check out something called the RAZR, ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR PHONES OUT THERE, since its talk time is only 3.33 hours) is just icing on the cake.

I used Linux for a few years before switching to OS X and the idea of multiple desktops sounded useful, but it ended up getting tiring pretty quickly to keep moving applications around and jumping to different desktops. I'm curious to see if Apple's implementation makes it any easier to use, though. In the real world, four desks near each other sounds like it'd be good to have a lot of space, but four desks are also four desks you need to keep clean and organized and you have to remember what you put in which desk...

You mean "The French concede to Apple"?

Aren't you making a really gigantic assumption that in order to release updates to their OS (and thus keep making money) Microsoft will have to rewrite their OS each time they make a new release? That's rediculous. As you've pointed out, Apple has been able to make four "releases" (five if you count Leopard) of their operating system. Microsoft also did this with Win95 -> WinMe -> WinXP. Given the massive amount of effort and the number of years going into Vista, there may very well be even more releases of Vista (that won't necessarily even be called Vista after the first year) to keep Microsoft going very well past 2007. I feel like your argument is just saying "Microsoft will self-destruct... just because" and doesn't offer a compelling reason for that to actually happen.