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Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

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Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was running OSX in VMWare every day for a couple of years, did iOS development. With 8 GB RAM and fast Intel SSD in my Windows laptop, the VM was faster then hardware MacBooks I saw. Modern hardware-assisted virtualization is very efficient, BTW that's exactly what allowed those cloud computing.

if i knew a few weeks ago i would probably think a bit more of buying another macbook. osx allows vm installs?

Technically yes. Not sure about the latest OSX, but when I used that, everything worked fine for me.

Legally no. VM or not, the real hardware needs to be made by Apple.

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#442
post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Sony Ericsson P800/P900/P910 had a removable keypad making them effectively rectangular phones. The Neonode N1 had a touch driven interface, including the slide to unlock feature. Then there were PDAs like Sony Clie PEG-TH55. All this a couple of years before the iPhone. The reason phones didn't look like rectangles wasn't because no one had the idea, but because screens were expensive and touch technology (and o…

I had a P-800. I can tell you the iPhone experience was much more than the screen. It was swipe, multi-touch, the smooth animation, the attention to designing applications down to their icons. The iPhone redefined what a smartphone should be using nothing that wasn't available to anyone else in the market. Except, perhaps, a Jony Ive with a mad man like Steve Jobs pushing him. That said, the unibody MacBooks set the…

Of course, the P800 was a couple of years before the iPhone. The point is that a P800 with five year more modern components would look similar to an iPhone. The first iPhone was actually pretty crappy by today's standards. No GPS, MMS, 3G, appstore, teathering or iTunes sync IIRC. Because they were breaking into the market before the technology was ready. Similarly to Tesla now, which is why their cars will be expensive and crappy by tomorrow's standard for things like autonomous driving.

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#443
post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not anymore, these days radeon is far better than fglrx and works great straight out of the box.

For what GPUs? This is an honest question, and I appreciate your answer in advance. I have a desktop with an HD 6850 and the radeon driver has always worked well, I used to play DOTA2 on it. But this is a very old GPU now, and all newer models (HD7xxx and up) were having performance issues with the radeon driver last time I was reading the forums.

R9 270X in my case. The Rx 3xx and newer (and they're slowly porting it to older devices) use the newer AMDGPU driver stack, which is supposed to be even better, but I haven't tried that myself yet.

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#444
post #224

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> Linux has tons of native applications in just about every category. Cool. Where's Word, Tinder, Instagram, Google Maps, Google Mail, Outlook and WhatsApp? I think there's a Linux Spotify, so you've got that. I love Linux (I'm ex Red Hat and IBM's Linux team) but Linux (as mentioned, Linux/glibc/X/whatever) lacks apps. > Is that a troll? Seriously?

> Cool. Where's Word, Tinder, Instagram, Google Maps, Google Mail, Outlook and WhatsApp? Where are any of these apps on Windows or OSX? Word is the only one with a native app, the rest are either mobile only, or browser based.

Well yes, desktop computing is dying. Hence suggesting Android.

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#445
post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were never first to market with a category of product, that's just not in their DNA. Even the Apple I was a computer largely similar in terms of features to a multitude of others on the market, but it wasn't a direct copy of any of their competitors. Their ideal product entry point is when consumers are familiar with the product but are unhappy with the current offerings because they lack the right contextual fi…

Apple Maps, Apple Watch, F.lux, Those are just off the top of my head, Apples been around a long time and its happen many times (but as Ive said all companies to this). I just don't like deniers where Apple is viewed as all good and in the light, when they absolutely are not. (and neither are most companies) Apple is just made because its happening to them right now and not the other way around, its eating their pote…

Apple Maps: In what respect is this "stolen"? By the same argument did Google steal from Garmin or MapArt who in turn stole from cartographers? Not sure what you're saying here. Mapping applications have been around for decades. Apple needed one on their phone. They made one. It's similar to other mapping apps, Google's included, but also took a new approach in some regards.

Apple Watch: It's a smart watch, they didn't invent the category, but it's a novel form-factor, instantly recognizable. The operating system is also highly distinct from others. You'd never confuse an Apple Watch for anything but an Apple Watch. Some of the Android based ones are going out of their way to look like non-smart watches. At least Motorola has their own design language here.

F.lux: Significant functional overlap but these sorts of tools have been around since the 1990s. It's not like F.lux invented this, they just popularized it. Maybe it was a dick move on Apple's part, or maybe it was just a thing they thought should be core to their product.

When Microsoft wanted to add faxing functionality to Windows they could have bought WinFax, but they instead made their own thing. Is this stealing?

I think your definition of stealing and copying is extremely loose, to the point where the term has lost all meaning.

Your comments use words similar to mine like "the" and "a". Are you stealing my words?

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#446
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you mean the kind of Optimus thing, it's actually handled okay out of the box with recent Nvidia drivers. I had problems with it about two years ago, but recently reinstalled with LM17.3 and the Nvidia drivers it automatically installed handle the dual graphics thing just fine.

Hey man, could you elaborate on that a bit or point to a tutorial? I am running Kubuntu 16 on a Skylake+950M laptop, and I can either use Intel or Nvidia but not both at the same time. There is Bumblebee, but my machine freezes on startup....

Hey, I'm not sure what to tell you. My Optimus functionality has been working since installing the "newest" version of the official Nvidia drivers (nvidia-352) on LM17.3. I turned it on in the BIOS and have been able to select from the "NVIDIA X Server Settings" utility ever since. I remember trying out Bumblebee on LM17 and having similar issues as you mention, and was unable to boot with Optimus enabled in the BIOS.

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#447
post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple Maps, Apple Watch, F.lux, Those are just off the top of my head, Apples been around a long time and its happen many times (but as Ive said all companies to this). I just don't like deniers where Apple is viewed as all good and in the light, when they absolutely are not. (and neither are most companies) Apple is just made because its happening to them right now and not the other way around, its eating their pote…

Apple Maps: In what respect is this "stolen"? By the same argument did Google steal from Garmin or MapArt who in turn stole from cartographers? Not sure what you're saying here. Mapping applications have been around for decades. Apple needed one on their phone. They made one. It's similar to other mapping apps, Google's included, but also took a new approach in some regards. Apple Watch: It's a smart watch, they didn…

Apple created Apple Maps and at the same time did not approve Google Maps for iOS6 (they obviously later approved it because the uproar was deafening). Like I said those were only the first few things that came to mind. Apple steals ideas, Google steals ideas, Microsoft steals ideas, Facebook steals idea... They all do it, that was my only point. And yes I stole your words, please pay me for them.

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#448
post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of those only the Prada is close, and even then the similarities are very superficial: http://gizmodo.com/261172/settling-this-iphone-vs-lg-prada-n... Since it was released so close to the launch of the iPhone that it's not like Apple could have possibly dropped everything and rebuilt their entire design strategy around it. The protracted lawsuit with Samsung showed how Apple had been working on that design for some…

Not only did you completely miss the point, you changed your whole argument when the facts didn't suit your views anymore. Phone look like they do because of the state of technology. I don't know why this is hard to understand? "Of those only the Prada is close" No, the P900 was a smart phone and therefor a rectangular phone like the iPhone, but with a hardware keyboard in addition to the virtual one since touch tech…

I'm not sure how re-inventing the form factor of the phone in combination with an aggressively touch-friendly operating system is "copying". That Apple abandoned hardware buttons almost completely had a lot of people reeling. They hated it.

By that definition the Ford F-150 is a copy of the Porsche 911. I mean they both have four wheels and an engine and things like door handles and windows.

The Sony x505 has "chiclet" keys, but they didn't invent them. These things were on calculators decades prior, and infamously the IBM PC Jr.'s wireless keyboard.

What I'm talking about is the peculiar arrangement of the arrow keys and other subtle things that are very distinctly Apple. Given how quirky some keyboards can be, where seemingly every vendor has their own spin on how big the Caps Lock key should be or where backspace should be positioned, they're all using Apple's keyboard as a blueprint going forward, literally copying it.

Apple's fairly unique arrow key layout showed up in early versions of the iBook and other Apple machines in the 2000-2001 era, possibly earlier.

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#449
post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only did you completely miss the point, you changed your whole argument when the facts didn't suit your views anymore. Phone look like they do because of the state of technology. I don't know why this is hard to understand? "Of those only the Prada is close" No, the P900 was a smart phone and therefor a rectangular phone like the iPhone, but with a hardware keyboard in addition to the virtual one since touch tech…

I'm not sure how re-inventing the form factor of the phone in combination with an aggressively touch-friendly operating system is "copying". That Apple abandoned hardware buttons almost completely had a lot of people reeling. They hated it. By that definition the Ford F-150 is a copy of the Porsche 911. I mean they both have four wheels and an engine and things like door handles and windows. The Sony x505 has "chicle…

At this point I can only conclude that you don't want to understand. I've already explained that there were a number of manufacturers who had a vision of a smart phone with a similar form factor to the iPhone. Steve Jobs was a fan of Sony, he wanted to run Mac OS on the VAIO line of laptops. As that didn't work out, he ultimately made his own slim aluminium laptop with chiclet keyboard. Richard Howarth who was involved in designing both the iPhone and the MacBook Air had previously worked at Sony. Before Apple adopted the Sony style their products were plastic and/or colorful.

Apple has always copied, just like they copied much of the current iPhone user interface from their competitors.

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be more charitable to assume their intent wasn't to mischaracterize.

That's why I used the word mischaracterize. It doesn't really examine intent, it points at the result. For instance, you can mischaracterize something by not understanding it or by not being informed at all about it or by intentionally lying.

Fair point. The tone I perceived definitely seemed accusatory. It seems I'm the one that should have been more charitable. Sorry about that.
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