I bought it but I forgot that I have way too much firewall protection in place to allow access to my servers using this app while on the road using 3G. When I'm in a known wifi network it works but in that situation I always have a full Mac to work with.
In the past I have always used my MBP over 3G to VNC into my Mac at the office through which I could then ftp into my data center. I know that the Mac in the office is a potential weak point in my security but I need a back door. So yes, Textastic is nice program but I would have to relax my firewall rules to make use of it.
I suppose I can always query my DHCP IP when out and about and call the NOC and have them temporarily update my firewall rules, but that is a hassle to do more than on rare occasions. What do others people do to gain access past your firewall when on 3G?
I disagree. I think the Playbook is the most promising of iPad's competitors. Certainly technical hiccups are common for such devices, Apple included, and I don't think anyone would consider it a deal-breaker that a few devices needed to be recalled so early in a product's lifecycle.
That said, RIM should have waited a little longer to bring out a more polished product. Still, if they do get a lot of the kinks out quickly, I think the Playbook might just be one of the survivors.
Bad start but not necessarily game over.
it's half the size as the iPad, but the same price, and requires a Blackberry phone for blackberry email, and they don't have a way to write natives apps, but rather rely on running their competitors apps. Is that really the best competitor?
it's half the size as the iPad, but the same price, and requires a Blackberry phone for blackberry email, and they don't have a way to write natives apps, but rather rely on running their competitors apps. Is that really the best competitor?
RIM doesn't live or die by the Playbook --- they are going to live or die by their OS migration.
Enjoy your laugh now. Then again, perhaps your laugh will continue for a while, I don't know. I do know that today's Android phone market is larger than the iOS market. It's tough to laugh at Android handsets. At least today. Once upon a time, Android phones were weak. Rushed to market. The only appeal was that they weren't Apple products. And yet they still sold. Today, Android phones are represent a pretty decent platform. A true alternative to iOS. I suspect that Android on tablets will come around as well. You may be laughing at something that will come back to bite you.
If you count all those crappy android phones then it outsold iPhones. I still have to laugh harder though
Enjoy your laugh now. Then again, perhaps your laugh will continue for a while, I don't know. I do know that today's Android phone market is larger than the iOS market. It's tough to laugh at Android handsets. At least today. Once upon a time, Android phones were weak. Rushed to market. The only appeal was that they weren't Apple products. And yet they still sold. Today, Android phones are represent a pretty decent platform. A true alternative to iOS. I suspect that Android on tablets will come around as well. You may be laughing at something that will come back to bite you.
Ah, but there's an important difference. Most people don't want to get locked into a two year contract when they purchase a tablet, so that great equalizer of price, SUBSIDIES, gets thrown out of the picture. Gone are all of the nearly free Android competitors. Gone all of the Buy One Get One Free offers. Gone are all of the marketing, sales, and support partners (AT&T, Verizon, etc).
Sure, you seem to draw a decent analogy here, but it is incomplete, and the things where the analogy fails are very very important. Better figure out how to shore up those parts of your analogy, else I'm not coming to your same conclusion.
Again, the question to ask yourself is would the carriers eat this? Why would they? What would I do if I were Verizon? Would I eat the cost, or would I tell the vendor to lower their price and threaten to make a competitor my featured phone getting all the commercial time if they don't?
I guess you would eat it. Verizon probably has a bit more negotiating experience.
Verizon's web site says it all. iPhone. Smartphones. Feature phones. The iPhone is its own category!
Yes, the mid and low end android phones are sometimes given away for free and / or part of a BOGO promotion, but you cannot attribute all android sales to those.
The high end android phones occupy price points at or above that of the iphone, and are rarely offered for free / BOGO promotions unless they are nearing EOL.
Hell, I spent significantly more for my Android phone than an iPhone 4 since I had to get it imported from Canada as they don't sell the model I wanted in the US.
While I agree that Android is a worthy competitor to iOS now, and a good alternative to an iPhone for many people, I disagree that it has anything to do with choice. That's just the same hollow reasoning you get from the 'anti-Apple' people you mentioned, but it's completely meaningless. People aren't anti-Apple because Android offers more choice, in fact for typical customers Android offers less. The fact that you can sideload applications, hook up a mouse or a printer, connect your phone over HDMI or flash custom ROMS, it's all so far removed from what 'normal people' do with their phones that it doesn't even cross their mind when buying a phone. The choices people care about are 'can I use Netflix on it', 'can I install Angry Birds on it', 'does it have WhatsApp and Skype', 'how easy is it to operate the thing', etc. In terms of quality applications iOS provides more choice, not less.
I have yet to meet the first person in real life who admits to buying an Android phone because it offers him/here 'more choice'. My observation is that the only choice people want to make about a smartphone is 'do I want to spend that much $$$ on a device that looks and works like this?'. If they conclude the iPhone is too expensive and they played around with an Android phone and it looks ok to them, they will go for the Android phone. I'd estimate the percentage of potential buyers who eventually decide to not buy an iPhone because they think it 'offers them less choice' is close to 1%. People always think they want more choice, but actually they don't want more than 2 or 3 choices, otherwise they lose their overview and get all stressed out because after they choose one of the many available choices, the idea they might have made the wrong choice because they didn't have the time or energy to research all their options will keep nagging.
I think people don't 'hate Apple' because Apple gives you less choice, people 'hate Apple' because it's human nature for many people to hate on something succesful, especially something succesful that isn't cheap. That's really all there is to it. It's the Microsoft effect from 10 years back, but now it's Apple who draws all the attention.
I don't know about that.
In the IT world, which is dominated by no-one-ever-got-fired-for-choosing-Microsoft types, it's just old prejudices and ignorance. I was having lunch with an old friend of mine from the IT world and he said something really odd. First, he proclaimed that his 5-year-old Windows CE smartphone (some top-of-the-line HP PocketPC from the mid-2000s) could do 90% of what the iPhone 4 could. I thought, "did I just hear the most ignorant thing to come out of the mouth of a college graduate?" The guy still thinks Apple is the most proprietary thing out there, but ironically, he defines Windows PCs as the most "open" thing because no single vendor controls it (except Microsoft). Then as an example, he says iPods can't play MP3, they have their "proprietary iTunes format" (his words). The guy is obviously living in the 1990s or something. Apple's anal about developing certain technologies (every company has to have a "secret sauce," lest they join the race to the bottom), but Apple's far, far more willing to work with (and license from) other companies for things that they aren't willing to invent or develop themselves. They're not Microsoft.
Do a web search on Orson Wells frozen peas and you will find some YT videos... Unfortunately, Google seems to be screwing with YT lately, and you cannot watch many YT vids on the iPad... Pfhuc 'em!
And this, my friends, is why Apple has over 300 Apple Stores. Genius Bars should be called Idiot Bars.
After conducting basic Mac and iDevice training classes over four years (with a 2 year break in-between, thank goodness) I recently stopped. It was driving my blood pressure up, and my IQ down.
The past six months have been the worst. With all the iPhone and iPad madness, the level of cluelessness extends well beyond my current mortal compassion. A few years ago people that bought Macs were definitely enthusiasts. Now, they literally in class slide the laptop to face you and say, "Doesn't work.. You do it for me".
Thus I have taken a break from my Apple-related career of four years starting this month. I am interested in getting into app development but facing some obstacles at the moment.
On the subject of socks I do wash them and wear them again, but in general I buy very few clothes each year.
I mean, let's say Android domintes the low end in India, Brazil and China via the carriers giving away the phones, how does that benefit software developers in say the US? How do you get money of these people? Simple. You don't.
I know you are just making a point, but no carrier gives away phones in India. We either have post-paid contracts (with regular monthly billing), or pre-paid connections (where you buy a certain amount of talk time and can recharge it).
Enjoy your laugh now. Then again, perhaps your laugh will continue for a while, I don't know. I do know that today's Android phone market is larger than the iOS market. It's tough to laugh at Android handsets. At least today. Once upon a time, Android phones were weak. Rushed to market. The only appeal was that they weren't Apple products. And yet they still sold. Today, Android phones are represent a pretty decent platform. A true alternative to iOS. I suspect that Android on tablets will come around as well. You may be laughing at something that will come back to bite you.
You don't seem to understand the gravity of the problem. While these '3rd party' tablet makers are trying to get the basics down in a large variety of categories, the iPad continues to grow share, prominence, and most importantly, the app infrastructure continues to solidify even harder, while earning the confidence and loyalty of the developers.
Without this sub-culture of apps, all of these tablets are doomed to fail. I think they made a big mistake in marketing, in thinking that some kind of spec rap sheet was going to appeal to the masses and blow the iPad away, when all the consumer wants is to have a simple and fluid interface, and play Angry Birds.
Maybe not, the RIM OS migration coincides with the Nokia OS migration. People like to make fun of RIM's small 4% growth quarter-to-quarter --- but the fact is that Nokia collapsed so much that the whole smartphone market actually went down quarter-to-quarter. RIM actually grew at a faster rate than the industry --- for the first time in a long time.
Yes, the mid and low end android phones are sometimes given away for free and / or part of a BOGO promotion, but you cannot attribute all android sales to those.
The high end android phones occupy price points at or above that of the iphone, and are rarely offered for free / BOGO promotions unless they are nearing EOL.
Hell, I spent significantly more for my Android phone than an iPhone 4 since I had to get it imported from Canada as they don't sell the model I wanted in the US.
I'm hardly attributing *all* sales. But that accounts for many, and I suspect the Android numbers.
I know you are just making a point, but no carrier gives away phones in India. We either have post-paid contracts (with regular monthly billing), or pre-paid connections (where you buy a certain amount of talk time and can recharge it).
I don't know about China though.
I'm not saying that they are giving them away. Just that India represents a lower end market. No offense. With the incomes there coupled with the language difference, a complete domination by Android may not add much to a US devs bottom line.
And considering how Google pushes ads over paid apps, even Indian devs may not do all that well.
So, you're saying: No one can find them to buy, no one knows how to sell them, no one wants to advertise them, they cost too much and have nothing useful you can do with them. OK I understand now.
Comments
How about this? Even has syntax highlighting.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id383577124?mt=8
I bought it but I forgot that I have way too much firewall protection in place to allow access to my servers using this app while on the road using 3G. When I'm in a known wifi network it works but in that situation I always have a full Mac to work with.
In the past I have always used my MBP over 3G to VNC into my Mac at the office through which I could then ftp into my data center. I know that the Mac in the office is a potential weak point in my security but I need a back door. So yes, Textastic is nice program but I would have to relax my firewall rules to make use of it.
I suppose I can always query my DHCP IP when out and about and call the NOC and have them temporarily update my firewall rules, but that is a hassle to do more than on rare occasions. What do others people do to gain access past your firewall when on 3G?
I disagree. I think the Playbook is the most promising of iPad's competitors. Certainly technical hiccups are common for such devices, Apple included, and I don't think anyone would consider it a deal-breaker that a few devices needed to be recalled so early in a product's lifecycle.
That said, RIM should have waited a little longer to bring out a more polished product. Still, if they do get a lot of the kinks out quickly, I think the Playbook might just be one of the survivors.
Bad start but not necessarily game over.
it's half the size as the iPad, but the same price, and requires a Blackberry phone for blackberry email, and they don't have a way to write natives apps, but rather rely on running their competitors apps. Is that really the best competitor?
Wow. . . Fewer than 40 million iOS devices?? I thought it was well over 120 million??
That doesn't make any sense at all.
I believe the first number is US, the second number is world wide.
it's half the size as the iPad, but the same price, and requires a Blackberry phone for blackberry email, and they don't have a way to write natives apps, but rather rely on running their competitors apps. Is that really the best competitor?
RIM doesn't live or die by the Playbook --- they are going to live or die by their OS migration.
Enjoy your laugh now. Then again, perhaps your laugh will continue for a while, I don't know. I do know that today's Android phone market is larger than the iOS market. It's tough to laugh at Android handsets. At least today. Once upon a time, Android phones were weak. Rushed to market. The only appeal was that they weren't Apple products. And yet they still sold. Today, Android phones are represent a pretty decent platform. A true alternative to iOS. I suspect that Android on tablets will come around as well. You may be laughing at something that will come back to bite you.
If you count all those crappy android phones then it outsold iPhones. I still have to laugh harder though
Enjoy your laugh now. Then again, perhaps your laugh will continue for a while, I don't know. I do know that today's Android phone market is larger than the iOS market. It's tough to laugh at Android handsets. At least today. Once upon a time, Android phones were weak. Rushed to market. The only appeal was that they weren't Apple products. And yet they still sold. Today, Android phones are represent a pretty decent platform. A true alternative to iOS. I suspect that Android on tablets will come around as well. You may be laughing at something that will come back to bite you.
Ah, but there's an important difference. Most people don't want to get locked into a two year contract when they purchase a tablet, so that great equalizer of price, SUBSIDIES, gets thrown out of the picture. Gone are all of the nearly free Android competitors. Gone all of the Buy One Get One Free offers. Gone are all of the marketing, sales, and support partners (AT&T, Verizon, etc).
Sure, you seem to draw a decent analogy here, but it is incomplete, and the things where the analogy fails are very very important. Better figure out how to shore up those parts of your analogy, else I'm not coming to your same conclusion.
Thompson
If you don't see that, you aren't looking very hard. http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/p...cialoffers.jsp is a link to Verizon, BOGO for Droid Pro. At a reduced price, by the way.
AT&T, Motorola Bravo -one cent.
Amazon: Motorola Atrix 99.99
Droid incredible one cent
Sprint - LG Optimus - free
And that is stuff at a quick glance.
Again, the question to ask yourself is would the carriers eat this? Why would they? What would I do if I were Verizon? Would I eat the cost, or would I tell the vendor to lower their price and threaten to make a competitor my featured phone getting all the commercial time if they don't?
I guess you would eat it. Verizon probably has a bit more negotiating experience.
Verizon's web site says it all. iPhone. Smartphones. Feature phones. The iPhone is its own category!
Yes, the mid and low end android phones are sometimes given away for free and / or part of a BOGO promotion, but you cannot attribute all android sales to those.
The high end android phones occupy price points at or above that of the iphone, and are rarely offered for free / BOGO promotions unless they are nearing EOL.
Hell, I spent significantly more for my Android phone than an iPhone 4 since I had to get it imported from Canada as they don't sell the model I wanted in the US.
To paraphrase an Orson Wells ad (no not the frozen peas ad) -- Apple will release no product before its time.
Well, there was MobileMe.
And what do you mean "frozen peas"?
While I agree that Android is a worthy competitor to iOS now, and a good alternative to an iPhone for many people, I disagree that it has anything to do with choice. That's just the same hollow reasoning you get from the 'anti-Apple' people you mentioned, but it's completely meaningless. People aren't anti-Apple because Android offers more choice, in fact for typical customers Android offers less. The fact that you can sideload applications, hook up a mouse or a printer, connect your phone over HDMI or flash custom ROMS, it's all so far removed from what 'normal people' do with their phones that it doesn't even cross their mind when buying a phone. The choices people care about are 'can I use Netflix on it', 'can I install Angry Birds on it', 'does it have WhatsApp and Skype', 'how easy is it to operate the thing', etc. In terms of quality applications iOS provides more choice, not less.
I have yet to meet the first person in real life who admits to buying an Android phone because it offers him/here 'more choice'. My observation is that the only choice people want to make about a smartphone is 'do I want to spend that much $$$ on a device that looks and works like this?'. If they conclude the iPhone is too expensive and they played around with an Android phone and it looks ok to them, they will go for the Android phone. I'd estimate the percentage of potential buyers who eventually decide to not buy an iPhone because they think it 'offers them less choice' is close to 1%. People always think they want more choice, but actually they don't want more than 2 or 3 choices, otherwise they lose their overview and get all stressed out because after they choose one of the many available choices, the idea they might have made the wrong choice because they didn't have the time or energy to research all their options will keep nagging.
I think people don't 'hate Apple' because Apple gives you less choice, people 'hate Apple' because it's human nature for many people to hate on something succesful, especially something succesful that isn't cheap. That's really all there is to it. It's the Microsoft effect from 10 years back, but now it's Apple who draws all the attention.
I don't know about that.
In the IT world, which is dominated by no-one-ever-got-fired-for-choosing-Microsoft types, it's just old prejudices and ignorance. I was having lunch with an old friend of mine from the IT world and he said something really odd. First, he proclaimed that his 5-year-old Windows CE smartphone (some top-of-the-line HP PocketPC from the mid-2000s) could do 90% of what the iPhone 4 could. I thought, "did I just hear the most ignorant thing to come out of the mouth of a college graduate?" The guy still thinks Apple is the most proprietary thing out there, but ironically, he defines Windows PCs as the most "open" thing because no single vendor controls it (except Microsoft). Then as an example, he says iPods can't play MP3, they have their "proprietary iTunes format" (his words). The guy is obviously living in the 1990s or something. Apple's anal about developing certain technologies (every company has to have a "secret sauce," lest they join the race to the bottom), but Apple's far, far more willing to work with (and license from) other companies for things that they aren't willing to invent or develop themselves. They're not Microsoft.
Well, there was MobileMe.
And what do you mean "frozen peas"?
Do a web search on Orson Wells frozen peas and you will find some YT videos... Unfortunately, Google seems to be screwing with YT lately, and you cannot watch many YT vids on the iPad... Pfhuc 'em!
Should I be sorry for this guy? http://sarasota.craigslist.org/sys/2385341929.html
And this, my friends, is why Apple has over 300 Apple Stores. Genius Bars should be called Idiot Bars.
After conducting basic Mac and iDevice training classes over four years (with a 2 year break in-between, thank goodness) I recently stopped. It was driving my blood pressure up, and my IQ down.
The past six months have been the worst. With all the iPhone and iPad madness, the level of cluelessness extends well beyond my current mortal compassion. A few years ago people that bought Macs were definitely enthusiasts. Now, they literally in class slide the laptop to face you and say, "Doesn't work.. You do it for me".
Thus I have taken a break from my Apple-related career of four years starting this month. I am interested in getting into app development but facing some obstacles at the moment.
On the subject of socks I do wash them and wear them again, but in general I buy very few clothes each year.
RIM doesn't live or die by the Playbook --- they are going to live or die by their OS migration.
Then they die.
I mean, let's say Android domintes the low end in India, Brazil and China via the carriers giving away the phones, how does that benefit software developers in say the US? How do you get money of these people? Simple. You don't.
I know you are just making a point, but no carrier gives away phones in India. We either have post-paid contracts (with regular monthly billing), or pre-paid connections (where you buy a certain amount of talk time and can recharge it).
I don't know about China though.
Enjoy your laugh now. Then again, perhaps your laugh will continue for a while, I don't know. I do know that today's Android phone market is larger than the iOS market. It's tough to laugh at Android handsets. At least today. Once upon a time, Android phones were weak. Rushed to market. The only appeal was that they weren't Apple products. And yet they still sold. Today, Android phones are represent a pretty decent platform. A true alternative to iOS. I suspect that Android on tablets will come around as well. You may be laughing at something that will come back to bite you.
You don't seem to understand the gravity of the problem. While these '3rd party' tablet makers are trying to get the basics down in a large variety of categories, the iPad continues to grow share, prominence, and most importantly, the app infrastructure continues to solidify even harder, while earning the confidence and loyalty of the developers.
Without this sub-culture of apps, all of these tablets are doomed to fail. I think they made a big mistake in marketing, in thinking that some kind of spec rap sheet was going to appeal to the masses and blow the iPad away, when all the consumer wants is to have a simple and fluid interface, and play Angry Birds.
Again, my posts had nothing to do with market share. I only used market share as an example. My original post was in response to this:
All together now, folks:
1. Point
2. Laugh
I was laughing at the shiny slab of failure that is the PlayBook recall, actually.
Maybe you'll see it this time.
Then they die.
Maybe not, the RIM OS migration coincides with the Nokia OS migration. People like to make fun of RIM's small 4% growth quarter-to-quarter --- but the fact is that Nokia collapsed so much that the whole smartphone market actually went down quarter-to-quarter. RIM actually grew at a faster rate than the industry --- for the first time in a long time.
Yes, the mid and low end android phones are sometimes given away for free and / or part of a BOGO promotion, but you cannot attribute all android sales to those.
The high end android phones occupy price points at or above that of the iphone, and are rarely offered for free / BOGO promotions unless they are nearing EOL.
Hell, I spent significantly more for my Android phone than an iPhone 4 since I had to get it imported from Canada as they don't sell the model I wanted in the US.
I'm hardly attributing *all* sales. But that accounts for many, and I suspect the Android numbers.
I know you are just making a point, but no carrier gives away phones in India. We either have post-paid contracts (with regular monthly billing), or pre-paid connections (where you buy a certain amount of talk time and can recharge it).
I don't know about China though.
I'm not saying that they are giving them away. Just that India represents a lower end market. No offense. With the incomes there coupled with the language difference, a complete domination by Android may not add much to a US devs bottom line.
And considering how Google pushes ads over paid apps, even Indian devs may not do all that well.
So, you're saying: No one can find them to buy, no one knows how to sell them, no one wants to advertise them, they cost too much and have nothing useful you can do with them. OK I understand now.
This comment is pure genius!