iPad tops Mossberg's list of best reviewed products of 2010

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  • Reply 41 of 63
    bigpicsbigpics Posts: 1,397member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anonymouse View Post


    That's because Google doesn't care a bit about quality. Like Microsoft, for whom "good enough" was always the mantra (and very liberally interpreted by them), Google just wants to dump free stuff into markets that is good enough to destroy that market as one in which companies can profitably compete based on quality. The goal is to get everyone using the low quality, but free, stuff, by sucking the oxygen out of the market for everyone else, so Google can collect personal data, control access to information, serve ads and, increasingly, to steer people to other Google services where the vicious cycle repeats.



    This is also why Apple is one of the few companies that is able to effectively compete against Google. Apple's philosophy is exactly opposite: create innovative high quality products that are easy to use, and that stay at least a step or two ahead of the junkware that companies like Google and Dell put out. That Apple does compete effectively against these companies is a testament to just how much better their products and user experience are.



    Like Microsoft, Google is not and never has been a creative company. They both used a single product, DOS/Windows and Search, respectively, to leverage themselves into other markets. But their strategy in those markets is not to produce fantastically great products, it's to produce "good enough" products, dumped on the market, and to destroy those markets for others.



    I call semi-bullbleep here. Forget the ad-serving biz model and nefarious data collection for a moment and just consider product:



    GMail was and is a better product than Hotmail and Yahoo Mail, and for my purposes much better than AppleMail. And there's hardly a month that goes by when I don't check into a subtly improved product, sometimes with brand-new and easy to use features. e.g., adding in-inbox chat, and now free voice calls. And this service integrates perfectly with Google Voice, which has given me a free number (which I got to choose from an available list) in the other area code I spend time in every year, along with all its other many free services, e.g., transcribing voice messages, unified GMail, Chat and Voice contact lists - which in turn have uses in Google Docs and (I think) YouTube.



    There's nothing in the UI of these or the others below that's exactly elegant, although G-tools and layouts are generally wonderfully minimalist compared to other browsers, but if not pretty, there's also not much in the Goog UI that gets in your way of working quickly and efficiently compared to many products.



    Google search itself is faster, anticipates search queries more accurately and has more features and more differentiated tools all the time. Google News is a great feature. After many head to head comparisons I've also settle on Google Maps. Which embeds very well in other people's web sites. Is MapQuest still in business? I have no idea. And Google labs is always full of new stuff to try or use. Google Earth is certainly best in class for value, and Google's new Body Browser is an amazing interactive atlas of the body (from which you can send your current exact view to another user).



    Chrome has totally turned me from years on FireFox and Safari's still as stupid with its limited history as ever. I can't believe it can't return you to a previous browsing session with the history of each open tab intact. Chrome is much faster than Firefox, sandboxes each tab in its own process, almost never crashes (I've had a 20-35 tab session open in Vista for about a month now), is much less of a memory hog than FF or Safari (which just keep growing and growing in RAM use over the days). Chrome is also totally self-updating and the integrated search and URL bar is a bigger advance than you might imagine over time. And it's getting a lot of add-ons and extensions now, e.g., a way cool lyric reader for songs on YouTube, a button to start a gmail to forward a link without having to go to gMail, and while many of the initial Chrome apps are merely websites, so are many iOS apps essentially.



    So on these and others, they seem more like leaders than followers (I won't say innovative since they buy a lot new tech through acquisitions), the integration between the products is impressive and the software is NOT shoddy (and I've used plenty of software). And on the mobile front, Android's certainly come a much further way much faster than Win ever did. My friends (and lots of the tech cognoscenti) really like their Android Phones, not to mention they're continuing to sell faster and faster.



    Their online help tools, too, are better, faster, etc. than IE. And damn, it is NOT in their best interest to "not care a bit about quality." That's ridiculous on its face.



    And as for how they earn their revenue, my eye's trained to virtually never even notice any content in banner or ad-sense bits. If they've gotten any clicks from me in years, I don't remember. And as for their a) corporate morality and b) plans to dominate as much of the digi-verse as they can, I simply ask a) compared to whom and b) which sizable company that might wouldn't? Data-mining? How about those reports this week about how many iPhone apps are wringing out our data and selling it without ever asking permission? And facebook likely knows as much about me as Google. And many other companies know some.



    Certainly, they falter - as do virtually all rapidly growing diversified companies in rapidly evolving tech fields - Buzz was ill-conceived, too limited to ever compete with fb and the rollout was a PR disaster. Wave couldn't define what it was and is now waving buh-bye. Android's geekier than iPhone and does have some fragmentation. Also, even with a big headstart, Office Live has better online Office tools. And Google TV is the exception (clunky, overly complex, buggy, poor UI and hardware design - which latter is partly Google's fault - i.e., like a product MS would roll out) which I think proves the rule here.



    Which is that by virtually any product measure, Goog is no MS - its first versions work better, and are generally far more reliable, and its updating cycle much faster.



    It's fine with me for people to see Google as an or the "enemy," and yeah they're scary, but then to me so is Apple as well as MS and fb, but hey, if you want to keep up with what's happening, you still have to give every devil its due.
  • Reply 42 of 63
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bigpics View Post


    I call semi-bullbleep here. Forget the ad-serving biz model and nefarious data collection for a moment and just consider product:



    GMail was and is a better product than Hotmail and Yahoo Mail, ... Google Voice ... Google Docs ... YouTube.



    There's nothing in the UI of these or the others below that's exactly elegant ...



    Google search itself is faster, anticipates search queries more accurately and has more features and more differentiated tools all the time. Google News is a great feature. After many head to head comparisons I've also settle on Google Maps. Which embeds very well in other people's web sites. Is MapQuest still in business? I have no idea. ...



    So, you're "calling BS" but agreeing with me? (See bolded text above.) By the way, did they ever get that sort feature implemented in GMail?



    There's nothing in any Google product that is "exactly elegant". And most of them don't really work that great either. For example, Mapquest is not only still in business but usually gives better directions than Google Maps.



    Even Google Search has become untrustworthy as the search results become more and more skewed in Google's attempts to maximize revenue out of them, rather than honestly provide the best results.



    They rush crap our the door just like Microsoft did (does). They announce stuff way before it's ready, just like Microsoft. They act with utter disregard for the law and the intellectual property of others, just like Microsoft. Google is the new Microsoft.
  • Reply 43 of 63
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by christopher126 View Post


    Agreed...but SatTV is more viable for TV transmission than digging a ditch for every inch of cable! No?



    Best



    Christopher, please consider that many, many, people in apartment communities and other rent properties cannot install and use SatTV. My son lives in an apartment community. His apartment faces in the wrong direction. He can't install an antenna. All the units in his community that don't face the southern sky cannot use SatTV. The units that do have a view of the southern sky can install dishes if they wish. I do have SatTV at my home. I own the home and I get to choose what exterior surface to mount the antenna and then drill the holes in the wall.



    It's been many years since I've investigated Sat based Internet. It is out there, you can google it. My experience is that the prices are very high compared to land based delivery systems and it provides disappointing bandwidth and latencies for the price.



    I'm not really trying to dis your opinion, but I believe that an importantly large number of people have no choice but to accept land delivery of content.



    Seanson's greetings, Christopher, and to everyone else as well.
  • Reply 44 of 63
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Stourque View Post


    There was a story here a few days ago about the porn industry switching from flash to html 5. That is the nail in the coffin for flash. Game over. Just like VHS/beta, blu-ray/hddvd, when the porn industry takes sides, it's over. You should have seen the look on the girls face at best buy when I said this. She was speechless.



    (Emphasis added.)



    It's a nice theory, but the porn industry originally favored HD DVD over Blu-Ray... and we have Blu-Ray...



    General:

    http://blogcritics.org/scitech/artic...ays-no-way-to/

    http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2085645,00.asp

    http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2007/01/8602.ars



    Mac-Focused:

    http://www.macworld.com/article/5062...05/pornhd.html

    http://www.macdailynews.com/index.ph...omments/16014/
  • Reply 45 of 63
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Stourque View Post


    There was a story here a few days ago about the porn industry switching from flash to html 5. That is the nail in the coffin for flash. Game over. Just like VHS/beta, blu-ray/hddvd, when the porn industry takes sides, it's over. You should have seen the look on the girls face at best buy when I said this. She was speechless.



    Nope, she was reaching for her mace spray...
  • Reply 46 of 63
    brucepbrucep Posts: 2,823member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nvidia2008 View Post


    Nope, she was reaching for her mace spray...



    or her vibrator phone
  • Reply 47 of 63
    pmzpmz Posts: 3,433member
    The iPad is the best consumer electronics product to come to market since the iPhone. And that's really not an overstatement at all.



    There have been good products, but the iPad trumps them all by a lot.
  • Reply 48 of 63
    Mossberg's credibility is weak, he's played up to Apple for too many years, it's as though he's on Steve's payroll.
  • Reply 49 of 63
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by macmac2 View Post


    Mossberg's credibility is weak, he's played up to Apple for too many years, it's as though he's on Steve's payroll.



    Gimme a break. That guy's been observing the tech industry for more than 18 years. Have you ever consider his "playing up" on Apple coz they're making good quality products?
  • Reply 50 of 63
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anonymouse View Post


    So, you're "calling BS" but agreeing with me? (See bolded text above.) By the way, did they ever get that sort feature implemented in GMail?



    There's nothing in any Google product that is "exactly elegant". And most of them don't really work that great either. For example, Mapquest is not only still in business but usually gives better directions than Google Maps.



    Even Google Search has become untrustworthy as the search results become more and more skewed in Google's attempts to maximize revenue out of them, rather than honestly provide the best results.



    They rush crap our the door just like Microsoft did (does). They announce stuff way before it's ready, just like Microsoft. They act with utter disregard for the law and the intellectual property of others, just like Microsoft. Google is the new Microsoft.



    I think this represents a different philosophy than Apple. It is very Web 2.0: Have a bright idea, get a prototype working, throw it open to the public, see what works & what doesn't, modify continually to make it better.



    That works pretty well on the web because websites are so stateless, but it doesn't work in consumer electronics where new releases are far less frequent and the buyers are far less forgiving of glitches & clunkiness. Apple is often criticized for having under-featured products. But they (try to) make sure the features WORK, and then they slowly add new features once consumers are comfortable with the old features. Google (and MS) seem to take the "here's a bunch of cool features, um, they don't work quite right, or together very well, but we'll get it right eventually, and Apple doesn't have this!" approach. And, to repeat an old saw: "Apple takes care of the end-to-end user experience." MS & Google only do part of the equation and that hurts them.



    I don't think that makes Google (or MS) evil. Just different. Lot's of people like Android. The one person I know with a Windows 7 phone likes it (and he had an iPhone, too.)



    - Jasen.
  • Reply 51 of 63
    iliveriliver Posts: 299member
    Well he's certainly right that pre-November, the iPad was sorely lacking.
  • Reply 52 of 63
    iliveriliver Posts: 299member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by fila97 View Post


    Gimme a break. That guy's been observing the tech industry for more than 18 years. Have you ever consider his "playing up" on Apple coz they're making good quality products?



    I think he's confused with the Apple fanboy David Pogue of the NY Times.
  • Reply 53 of 63
    iliveriliver Posts: 299member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    "The only way that's ever going to change," Jobs said, "is if you can really go back to square one, tear up the set top box, redesign it from scratch with a consistent UI across all these different functions, and get it to consumers in a way that they're willing to pay for it. And right now there's no way to do that."



    Meanwhile blu-ray penetration has grown at an astronomical rate and Apple missed a huge opportunity to bundle blu-ray into its Apple TV due to its iTunes greed.
  • Reply 54 of 63
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by iLiver View Post


    Meanwhile blu-ray penetration has grown at an astronomical rate and Apple missed a huge opportunity to bundle blu-ray into its Apple TV due to its iTunes greed.



    Well, that astronomical growth rate has not reached the our solar system yet, and as it very much looks like, it never will. Seems to me rather an astronomical flyby.
  • Reply 55 of 63
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by sflocal View Post


    GoogleTV was just painful to watch when they introduced it. I certainly do not discount Google when they release GTV2.0, but they don't seem to get that the entertainment industry is built on relationships and as written in an article about the failure of GTV, Google seems to have an issue socializing with people and forging partnerships.



    Agreed. They clearly disregarded a big group of content providers when they revived the old WebTV idea. They either have no clue about how the game works with networks or choose to callously ignore it. And got bit.





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by sprockkets View Post


    Well let's face it, the Dell streak is an 5" Android phone, not so much what we define as a tablet. He got that wrong. Calling it the worst product is stretching it.



    I disagree. Dell named it a tablet and it failed in that regard. Had they positioned it with their phone line, it would have fit better. They could have harkened back to the old school PDA as the design cue, but vastly improved.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by sheff View Post


    I think el Jobso meant put the setup box inside the tv, . . .



    That said apple already has many content deals in place, all we need is a real apple tv, that is actually a tv.



    Or not. Putting it in the TV forces folks to have to buy a new TV, and the ones Apple has blessed. But what if I already have a big beautiful 60 inch Sony and Apple is partnered with Panasonic (and they only go up to 50 inches). with a standalone box I don't have that issue. And about a million folks have proven okay with the little box that is currently out



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by RayInHou View Post


    I think Apple should partner with a cable provider and not compete with them. Imagine if they partnered with AT&T U-verse and designed their box and UI... I think that is what is needed in order to slowly redefine Television.



    I see potential anti-trust issues and the networks freaking out over the whole iTunes issue. And I don't see Apple dropping the iTunes store since it is part of the move to dump physical disks





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by iLiver View Post


    Meanwhile blu-ray penetration has grown at an astronomical rate and Apple missed a huge opportunity to bundle blu-ray into its Apple TV due to its iTunes greed.



    Not exactly. I work in the film industry and I know what was behind all that 'big bag of hurt' talk. And Jobs was right, at that point it was a huge mess and a major cost for a company that wasn't selling high volume like Apple was at the time. Apple went the only way they could at the time and it wasn't a cheap move. It isn' so much greed as trying to get their money back on the project.



    The issue isn't really the discs at this point. It is the potentially quality level of the downloads. We need a new format or codec that will allow for blu-ray quality video and audio without a huge file size overhead and we need studios embracing the format by putting the same features in both versions so buyers can choose without penalty. Those two issues are the biggies. Solve them and we could see Apple's gamble turn into a winning hand
  • Reply 56 of 63
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by 1reflectsathome View Post


    The iPad2 will likely be fully worthy of Steve's endearing label "it's magical" and secure its position as the the biggest game changer since the personal computer's arrival 30 years ago....



    i don't see any hints at sarcasm in your post so what, exactly, are the game changing expectations for iPad 2?



    Like you, I sold mine in prep to buy the revised model. which I'm sure will improve on the first. But some of the expectations seem hyperbolic. what do we KNOW, and what do we THINK the iPad 2 will boast?



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by christopher126


    I'm so glad i stuck with my original plan, everything in the iphone...tune-in radio app (FM radio)...



    How are you getting FM radio on your iPhone 4? I bought one of the new little Nanos so I could listen to game broadcasts while at the stadium. I'd love to have it all on my phone. Are you suggesting you can do that without a hardware add-on?



    Your comprehensive list, btw, is exactly the reason I so greatly appreciate my iphone.
  • Reply 57 of 63
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by rtdunham;


    How are you getting FM radio on your iPhone 4? I bought one of the new little Nanos so I could listen to game broadcasts while at the stadium. I'd love to have it all on my phone. Are you suggesting you can do that without a hardware add-on?



    Your comprehensive list, btw, is exactly the reason I so greatly appreciate my iphone.



    Thanks RT....it's a free app called "tune-in radio" I use it to listen to our local NPR. Haven't tried sports though! Best
  • Reply 58 of 63
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jm6032 View Post


    Christopher, please consider that many, many, people in apartment communities and other rent properties cannot install and use SatTV. My son lives in an apartment community. His apartment faces in the wrong direction. He can't install an antenna. All the units in his community that don't face the southern sky cannot use SatTV. The units that do have a view of the southern sky can install dishes if they wish. I do have SatTV at my home. I own the home and I get to choose what exterior surface to mount the antenna and then drill the holes in the wall.



    It's been many years since I've investigated Sat based Internet. It is out there, you can google it. My experience is that the prices are very high compared to land based delivery systems and it provides disappointing bandwidth and latencies for the price.



    I'm not really trying to dis your opinion, but I believe that an importantly large number of people have no choice but to accept land delivery of content.



    Seanson's greetings, Christopher, and to everyone else as well.



    Good points JM, and you're right. I hadn't considered apartment buildings. And yes I find my friend's sattv slow, expensive, clunky interface and limited. I just think it is the future, granted with a lot of attention needed to its current deficiencies.



    Best!
  • Reply 59 of 63
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by christopher126 View Post


    Thanks RT....it's a free app called "tune-in radio" I use it to listen to our local NPR. Haven't tried sports though! Best



    ahh. I'm pretty sure that's a streaming app. So it won't work in network-congested stadiums (where it's a treat to listen to the radio broadcast while watching a game).



    I suspect apple will activate the fm tuner on the next version of the iPhone. Until then, I just bought the griffin iFM radio--the hardware's hidden in an unobtrusive pod on the earphone cord, which constitutes the "dongle". It works with a free griffin iphone app. I'll know in a few days how it works. With that added functionality to the iPhone maybe my new Nano will soon be on the block, though it makes a cool wristwatch.



    BTW, the griffin device is currently discounted from $29 to $19 on the griffin website.
  • Reply 60 of 63
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by iLiver View Post


    I think he's confused with the Apple fanboy David Pogue of the NY Times.



    Could you please make coherent statements and not revert to using the term Fanboys, it is extremely boring to read your posts.

    Unless you have something relevant to write, then do not post on our site.

    As it implies this is an Apple-centric site, so why are you on here ?
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