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Only Apple

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Re: Only Apple

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just look at what they've managed to do, for example, with battery life. Nobody can match the hours of use per watt-hour of their tightly-integrated stack. That's not my (anecdotal) experience at all. My friends with similarly-specced phones like the Xperia Z1 Compact have their battery last way longer than my iPhone 5S. The iPhone may have better standby life, but we're heavy users, and as soon as you're using it…

The z1c has a 60% larger battery and weights 25% more. Ounce for ounce, or per mAh, though, the iPhone has really impressive battery life. Where it really excels is standby and radio power management. 10 hours of LTE browsing on Anand's and GSMArena's tests. My Nexus 5 is often on its last legs by midday with less than two hours of screen-on, because it'll chew through its battery in weaker-signal conditions. The iPh…

I haven't seen much difference between Macs and other laptops. My current MBP 13" (non-Retina) lasts for about 5 hours when doing normal dev work (text editing, compiling, debugging), I would consider this "light use". This is similar to the Dells, Sonys and Lenovo's I had before or currently use. One difference I see is that battery life doesn't seem to degrade as quickly as on other laptops I owned a few years ago.

I don't have "cross-platform" experience with phones, but my iPhone4 running iOS7 is pretty much drained after a normal day's use (it was better with iOS6).

All "anectodical evidence" of course ;)

Re: Only Apple

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly couldn't find a complaint with the Nexus 5. It's a stunning, fluid device. The only leg up in my eyes for the iPhone is the better app curation, but as someone who uses mostly web apps and Hangouts that's not a big demerit to me.

My biggest complaint is that it's just buggier than the Lumia I had before, or the iPhone 5 I had before that.

IMHO, it sounds like your biggest complaint is "it's not an iPhone".

Re: Only Apple

#173
post #82
post #70

Sorry to disagree with Gruber, but I don't think a set of devices made by one company is the future. It's always been Apple's play, in part because of the consistency of experience that it affords them, but it also let's them off the hook on the hard problems--device interop, working with varied OEMs, etc. Whether open (Google) or closed (Microsoft), platforms that run on multiple OEM devices are the right way forwar…

> Whether open (Google) or closed (Microsoft), platforms that run on multiple OEM devices are the right way forward. After a six-month experiment with Android on a Nexus 5, I couldn't disagree more. Separating the folks who make the OS from the folks who make the device just leads to compromises. Apple has the right model. Just look at what they've managed to do, for example, with battery life. Nobody can match the h…

> Apple has the right model. Just look at what they've managed to do, for example, with battery life. Nobody can match the hours of use per watt-hour of their tightly-integrated stack.

Battery shouldn't even be the last thing someone advocating an iPhone must argue upon. iPhone's battery life is dismal in a way that it feels like Apple engineered it - for whatever reason. You want to see battery life? I'll give two examples that doesn't even cost a limb - Lenovo P780 and Lenovo S860. (There are more). The point is iPhone's battery just doesn't last long enough if you use it as a "smartphone".

Re: Only Apple

#174
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pumps at the local gas station also have such a button. Should he have mentioned those? A reasonable reader understands that "unique", "no one", and "anything" are referring to the market Amazon is selling the device in.

That doesn't seem at all relevant. That's like saying in a retail store you can ask the retail employees for assistance. The addition of a button to summon an employee does not make it special. What interests me about this Amazon Mayday button (which I had never heard of before) and why I think Gruber talked about it, is because it's a completely free service provided to owners of a consumer device. It's basically cu…

Just to be clear, I totally agree with you. I was using the gas pump as an absurd example (as your sibling comment pointed out) of another instance prior art. I don't think parent's complaint about the use of "unique", "no one", and "anything" is a valid one.

Re: Only Apple

#175
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

since you only seem interested in being defensive ; just admit you committed a rather obvious and stupid logical fallacy The very first thing I did was accommodate your complaint , and change the words to what you wanted (and clearly mark it as an edit). That it didn't change the semantics of what I said at all suggests that it wasn't a logical fallacy. And given that all you've done here is attack, attack, attack, w…

> The very first thing I did was ... change the words You did not mention that you had changed the words, and Hacker News does not present me with older posts in the thread, so I literally had no idea you did that. Since you changed the words, why didn't you just say so, instead of trying to defend your straw man? Also, now that you've changed the words, I still disagree with what you wrote, because you're making an…

and Hacker News does not present me with older posts in the thread, so I literally had no idea you did that.

So, despite what I was saying, you never thought to go back over the words that both I and the OP said, and reconfirm that they were what you thought? That's just poor form from the outset.

a whole lot of guff in the middle I'm skipping because it's reiteration on both our behalves

.

What? What is this, kindergarden? Do I have to apologize to you for disagreeing with your argument and pointing out a logical fallacy?

Apparently it is kindergarten, because you would have me admit my 'wrongdoing' to satisfy you, but it's somehow juvenile for you to admit yours. Oh, and once again you commit the very same sins you accuse me of - I never asked you to apologise. I asked for some indication of self-reflection. Yet here you are putting words into my mouth, the very thing I supposedly did that started you in this thread. You really are quite the hypocrite.

The fact that you went on the defensive instead of appropriately responding to my criticism does not make my criticism something that I need to apologize for.

I guess changing my original wording to match your request doesn't count as 'responding appropriately'? That you never went back to reclarify what had been said between all three parties is bad form on your behalf. Particularly when the topic is about the meanings of words and phrases, it behooves you to go back and ensure you're clear on the matter.

In any case, for all you like to say that you haven't been rude here, you've been outstandingly rude. You haven't used profanity, but you write fluently enough to be fully aware that it doesn't require profanity to be rude. It's rather very obvious how stupidly and meaninglessly rude you've been in this preposterous conversation.

Or pehaps we disagree on the definition of 'needless', and you think that it was needed for someone to be rude to me as you have been?

Re: Only Apple

#176
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain why anyone would not turn on iCloud backups for their device?

Privacy concerns. Speed. Efficiency. Mobile data costs.

Well, the backup can be encrypted. It also doesn't use "mobile data" (over wi-fi). And speed and efficiency, I never had any problem with.

Any comparable service doing it better? Because those are general concerns, nothing special about iCloud.

Re: Only Apple

#177
post #71
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google and Amazon both understand the web a whole heck of a lot better than Apple I really doubt this. Google yes. Amazon no. What has Amazon did that shows it "gets" the Cloud? It has its one (and that's it) highly succesful store front (which is like a Google that only offered the search service). That's is, as far as the Cloud goes for Amazon. As for AWS, the do get cloud infrastructure and services to developer…

I disagree. Kindle is a shining example of this. Apple on the other hand... well, they created iTunes... but that's really the only "cloud" technology that they have besides the actual iCloud (hosted on AWS, possibly?). Apple has shown that they struggle when creating web experiences for customer. Remember ping.fm?

>Apple on the other hand... well, they created iTunes... but that's really the only "cloud" technology that they have besides the actual iCloud (hosted on AWS, possibly?). Apple has shown that they struggle when creating web experiences for customer. Remember ping.fm?

Yes, what about it? I also remember 20+ music stores that were created, touted to high heavens, gone nowhere and stopped existing (from Napster to Rhapsody etc), whereas iTMS succeeded widly.

It's not like Google for example doesn't have its share of Cloud failures. Google Wave anyone? Google+ that everybody seems to hate except some a-list tech writers, and which hardly made a dent against FB usage? Google Video? And tons of other folded attempts.

And it's not just iTunes.

It's also the App Store (which is a different beast to the music store). The Movies. iCloud for sync and backup and image sharing etc.

I agree that their web (in-browser) offerings (like iCloud office apps) are not very enticing.

But Apple's really not into using the Cloud for in-browser web apps -- they use it for enabling native apps to communicate and share data, and at massive scale at that.

Re: Only Apple

#178
post #70

Sorry to disagree with Gruber, but I don't think a set of devices made by one company is the future. It's always been Apple's play, in part because of the consistency of experience that it affords them, but it also let's them off the hook on the hard problems--device interop, working with varied OEMs, etc. Whether open (Google) or closed (Microsoft), platforms that run on multiple OEM devices are the right way forwar…

I agree with the notion of a single vendor for all our needs is a scary future but AFAIC, we not moving in that direction. We have experienced first hand how it was like when Microsoft dominated the desktop space and I wouldn't want history repeat itself.

That said, that doesn't mean that I should choose my allegiance based solely on the point.

Years of development although does translate to maturity of the technology, it doesn't translate to superiority. Often, it could means lots of legacy, extra baggages in the name of backward compatibility and even stifled development.

If you consider Objective-C vs C#, Objective-C is over 20+ years old and have always been the main language for the Mac/iOS Platform. How have it served Apple? Many people here wouldn't argue against it. What do you think truly make C# much better than Objective-C? If we based our criteria on years of experience, Objective-C would be hands down winner here. But no, they have their pros and cons.

Xcode might not have been as well developed as compared to Visual Studio for a long time, but thats gap is closing rapidly. Since Xcode 5, I haven't been really haven't been mad at Xcode. I'm excited about Xcode 6.

Beneath Xcode is the amazing LLVM that provides a solid foundation. Previously, it was based on GCC. In the most simplistic term, think of LLVM as the .NET of Visual Studio. It allows multiple languages interoperability with the software interface, but LLVM did it in a much lower level and isn't specific for any single software interface. (This is a very dumb down explanation of LLVM capability and might not be true to its goal) It is being open sourced which spurs technologies like RubyMotion (Ruby to iOS/Mac/Android) and WebKit FTL JIT.

This bring me to Swift. Swift is technically 4 year old and designed by Chris Lattner, the creator of LLVM. I believe, my personal opinion, that Swift is born because optimising Objective-C with LLVM is reaching a point of diminishing returns. Objective-C is my favourite language but there are things that the compiler just can't statically analyse with high degree of confidence in Objective-C. A good example is NSArray or NSDictionary; You technically can store any object in a single array/dictionary, but its hard to be specific about the class/type of the objects stored at compile time. NSArray and NSDictionary is in NSFoundation API, rather and a language feature. I see no easy way to get around it, at least with my limited knowledge.

Swift is very strict about types and it learns heavily from other languages. That can only be good thing for Apple ecosystem. Not everything Apple does is to compete with others. They did it because they have set the foundation ready for this eventual transition. This is years in the planning, not out of the whim decisions.

Its a misconception for people to think of Apple technology of being incompatible with the overall technological ecosystem. But LLVM and WebKit have shown that Apple are extremely capable of building technology that play well and improve the overall technological ecosystem. Microsoft on the other hand haven't have such a good track record.

I welcome the more open Apple and I disagree with your second half of the comment as its a too simplistic and under appreciative view of Apple's technological stack.

Re: Only Apple

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The z1c has a 60% larger battery and weights 25% more. Ounce for ounce, or per mAh, though, the iPhone has really impressive battery life. Where it really excels is standby and radio power management. 10 hours of LTE browsing on Anand's and GSMArena's tests. My Nexus 5 is often on its last legs by midday with less than two hours of screen-on, because it'll chew through its battery in weaker-signal conditions. The iPh…

I haven't seen much difference between Macs and other laptops. My current MBP 13" (non-Retina) lasts for about 5 hours when doing normal dev work (text editing, compiling, debugging), I would consider this "light use". This is similar to the Dells, Sonys and Lenovo's I had before or currently use. One difference I see is that battery life doesn't seem to degrade as quickly as on other laptops I owned a few years ago.…

The MacBook Pro Retinas and MacBook airs take advantage of newer battery cells, and have greatly improved battery life in my experience. The 13" MBP battery never impressed me.

Also, not sure when you bought your particular iPhone, but the iPhone 4 is coming up on being 4 years old (announced round about the same time as the Galaxy S for comparisons sake) and it's still able to last a full day with the latest software, and all on single core processor. I find that really impressive, to say the least :)

Re: Only Apple

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The z1c has a 60% larger battery and weights 25% more. Ounce for ounce, or per mAh, though, the iPhone has really impressive battery life. Where it really excels is standby and radio power management. 10 hours of LTE browsing on Anand's and GSMArena's tests. My Nexus 5 is often on its last legs by midday with less than two hours of screen-on, because it'll chew through its battery in weaker-signal conditions. The iPh…

10-12 hrs sounds exaggerated, I've never once seen a MPB last even ~5 hrs with light use.

No MBP boasts 10-12 hours, that's only the MBP Airs, which from my experience, follow up on that promise.

The MBP Retinas boast up to 9 hours, at the max, although those models I haven't used routinely. However it has been my experience that the MBP Retina's battery life are significantly more preferment than their non-retina predecessors.

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