grkhetan

??? Codex has more features than Claude Cowork (background computer use, etc)

Chrome browser has extensive enterprise support. Companies already control and monitor Chrome browser activity on the computers of their employees. And it's okay as well -- privacy should not be assumed or expected on company-owned devices.

I wouldnt want Uber to die. They were one who created the ride-sharing market and the industry fighting against all outdated regulations. They may have done "sabotaging" their competition once several years ago -- there's no record of them having done it in the last 2-3 years. Btw, Lyft also has done similar stuff.

I have tried to use Lyft, but the Uber's app design is much more user-friendly to me. I was confused by some of Lyft's ride selection options etc. Esp after the Uber redesign that happened a few months ago, it became much more easier and nicer to use.

I think Uber has released tons more open source sw than Lyft. https://github.com/uber

Its a neat feature actually. Taking up the next ride before finishing a previous one allows drivers to have no downtime, and thus increase their earnings; and for riders it allows them to get drivers sooner in cases where other available drivers are further away.

"Uber is losing money because they subsidize rides to try to push competitors out of business."

?? I think thats the wrong way to phrase this. Uber is loosing money as Uber and its competitors are giving a lot of incentives to drivers to win business. All of them are loosing money.

I use Uber a lot, and most of the drivers don't use Lyft. So I am not sure whether one can use any anecdotal evidence like this to gauge anything.

One more thing -- even though the press is hitting on Uber with lot of negative articles -- lot of this appears to be because those articles sell. Lot of the negativity seems exaggerated or seems to be the result of incomplete facts provided (for example, Mike Isaac on NYT said Uber uses Slice Intelligence to get aggregate anonymous data on market conditions; he did not mention that Lyft also does the same and that most companies have competitive intelligence teams. There are many other examples like this).

I like Uber that they went ahead and got cities to recognize the need for ride-sharing -- they were the first so they had to fight the regulations and entrenched taxi industry. In the end, that benefitted everyone - riders getting convenient, inexpensive rides, and drivers getting livelihood. Uber's competitors also benefited as the market was created by Uber already.

This bug of an extra duplicate line looks like a merge issue to me.

Wow... thats a really comprehensive, meaningful comment. Finally came to know whats so "unorganized" and "unpolished" about Android. I upped your post, but it was good enough to require a verbal vote of appreciation!

I agree with your thoughts ... but personally I happened to keep using Siri!!

I think the article was good, and Jason tried to be unbiased (he "tried", since he has always historically been pro-Android). However I believe an honest comparison between iOS and Android cannot be done in less than 10 pages of indepth review.

For example, I believe he missed the following positive points for iOS and iPhone (just my casual thoughts): 1. iPhone 4s is 2 to 3 times faster than Galaxy Nexus in graphics: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5133/galaxy-nexus-ice-cream-sa... 2. Software update support: The new OS updates are not pushed fast enough to all android phones -- you may have to wait months to get the latest OS release like 4.0 on your phone -- and for most phones, it will actually never be released (apart from Nexus phones which have the best experience in this regard, but when comparing Android you have to look at all phones). Look at this: http://theunderstatement.com/post/11982112928/android-orphan... 3. Android market apps cannot be fully trusted, since they may be of poor quality or may be malware -- since they have not been reviewed, and also they can access more things on the phone. (with permissions, but most users just say yes to all permissions) 4. Lots of accessories available for the iphone whereas there are so many android phones that accessories available for each phone are much much less. 5. Airplay on iOS can push the screen content and video/audio to speakers/TV via apple tv. This is a really amazing experience -- for example showing your photos and videos to friends on the TV via airplay while flicking back and forth on your iphone/ipad. 6. iCloud Photo stream where your photos are synced automatically, without you having to do anything. Same for documents in the iCloud. iTunes match can upconvert all your music to high quality music, without having to upload it in the first place! 7. Fragmentation issue: Some apps work on some phones, some dont. For example, netflix was not available for most android phones for a long time. Angry birds also started with only a few handsets. 8. Galaxy Nexus is toooo big. iPhone can be used well with one hand with the thumb being able to reach any part of the screen. iPhone's styling and design as well is better -- though that is subjective. 9. One of the best quality support and service available via apple retail store. 10. The amount of quality apps available on the App Store, for everything, like games, music, productivity, etc. 11. Siri may be underwhelming, but still it can handle a lot of tasks much more easily and in much more friendly way than Android.

There are many more.... For android also, there would be a list like this.. but I believe the main plus point in favor of android are: free navigation app from Google maps (on iOS, you have to buy one for atleast $20), app-to-app sharing and more customization.

Google TV was an unsuccessful imitation of Apple TV. Google has made its profession to just copy existing products. Anything that meets their eye.

He was young that time -- that does not mean he was dishonest for the rest of his life. And secondly, Woz loves him. Who are you dislike him, based on what Steve did to Woz, who knows what their relationship was...Since Woz loves him, I think this resolves the matter. Remember Steve made Woz a multi-millionaire by creating Apple, by providing his vision, entrepreneurial, marketing, business skills to his technical skills.

Similarly, people criticize him for bad behavior to his employees, but I see all apple employees love him (and love him much more than employees in most other companies love their leader) -- since I am an apple employee myself, I know. So I am not sure other people should dislike him for that when the actual employees that he talked to liked him (obviously there would be exceptions, some people obviously did not like him, but most did)

I know he loves Apple, but that does not mean his articles are junk. In fact, they are quite the opposite. I love his article writing style, his logical approach to thinking, his ability to dig information (like his frequent articles on things going on in the google chrome project, Facebook insider info, apple insider info, etc), his ability to make articles interesting, etc. One needs to read his articles with an open mind, enjoy the content/news, but assuming he will be slightly biased towards Apple and/or more excited about Apple than a typical geek would be, but that does not mean his articles will be crap.

1) I can do all of that with iOS keyboard as well, and very conveniently. I am not sure why you feel you need Swype to do that. Perhaps because the size of android phones is larger. 2) Ok, I agree that is powerful -- but I don't need it, but my wife and almost all friends have iOS5, so iMessage can serve me without checking whether they are "online". Overall, I see it provides value, but really my home screen estate is precious and i am not sure if I have place to keep contacts there. Anyway, I give a small plus point for Android here -- but its a philosophical difference -- android is for power-user or for making the phone feel like a computer with lot of flexibility, (which it is really not, and most people don't want it to be), iPhone is for making a pleasant appliance-like experience, not as powerful and flexible as a computer. It is intentional. 3) I am happy with the stock and weather widget in pull down notifications. I don't want to use my iPhone as a computer. 4) What if you actually wanted to change the ringer volume when you are using the browser? 5) iOS5 has synchronized reading list and synchronized bookmarks.

1) I have not myself used Swype, but one thing I know is that it is not as fast as iOS keyboard, since I have beaten friends in typing speed (they were using swype and I was using iOS keyboard). Overall iOS's default keyboard is much better than default keyboard.

Is (2) still relevant after Siri?

3) I personally think Widgets clutter the desktop and consume unnecessary power, and they don't provide as much utility to compensate for that.

4) Thats a very minor thing. Mobile Safari is a great browser. There are lot of third-party browsers also available on iOS like my favorite Atomic for iPad which has a ton of extra features and flexibility.

5) Am not sure what that is, but is that relevant after Siri?

The back button on Android is a double-edged sword (based on what I have read/heard), because its function is overridden by apps in inconsistent ways, so you are never sure what effect that button press may have. Am I correct? (i am an iOS user, so don't know)

Probably you need to read and understand more about the tech industry.

Really? Do you think making an OS (Mac OS X and iOS) and all the hardware designs of their dozens of products (remember airport express, iPods, macbook air, etc) are all "easy" to develop? Mac OS X and iOS are based on BSD, but they have been hugely modified. In fact, the kernel is far from BSD now, and they release it as open source Darwin -- it has influence from other OS'es as well.

Apple actually did a lot to better the labor conditions at the plants. They routinely publish a report about it as well.

What I wanted to say is that Foxconn makes products for a large number of companies : Acer, Amazon, Intel, Cisco, HP, Dell, Nintendo, Nokia, Microsoft, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Vizio, and others, apart from Apple. I am sure their products are also manufactured in the same labor conditions. Why is Apple being blamed and not any of the other companies? In fact, since Apple's name has been publicized, they have done much more to improve the conditions there, I am not sure whether these other clients did even a little bit.

If you think nobody liked Steve, do you think he would have remained the CEO of Apple? Was he a dictator who couldn't be ousted? He was the best leader for Apple, period. Secondly, if your boss scolds you, sometimes unnecessarily so, but he makes you millions of dollars by leading the company to a 130X increase in stock price, would you mind?? Thirdly, employees in the company love him. I happen to work at Apple right now, and the love I have seen in the employees for Steve, cannot be paralleled for any other leader at any other company. People didn't like his aggressiveness and his abrasiveness, but still loved him and his dedication and leadership, and that he single-handedly led Apple to great success. Genius is idiosyncratic.

(i made this comment on that web page, but hasn't been approved in the last 3 hours, so copying here as well)

I think some of your stories are not very accurate, they are twisted to be more negative than they were.

In any case, one thing you should definitely do is remove Richard Stallman's statement -- since perhaps you don't know him -- he thinks the whole IT product industry is satanish -- nobody should ever sell any product as per him. He does not use any software which is sold and lives like a hermit in the world of tech, with so fanatic ideals that he is completely incompatible with today's world.

Secondly, labor conditions at FoxConn factories are often pointed out as Apple's crimes -- but it is foolish to do so. Foxconn is the largest electronics manufacturer in the world, and a LOT of top tech brands in the world outsource their manufacturing to them. Apple makes them most money though -- I am not sure how Foxconn conditions are caused by Apple.

Thirdly, about charity, he donated privately. And he had a RED product campaign for iPods which donated a large amount of money to Africa for AIDS. And he has left his wealth of 7 billion here, his wife spent a lot of time doing charity, I am sure she will use almost all of it in charity...

Fourthly, backdating options was a common practice followed at a lot of companies -- this has nothing to do with Steve Jobs -- in fact he was found to be innocent in this (he knew about it, but he likely thought of it as an accounting issue: he was no accounting expert -- its not like he requested for this to be done).

Regarding Amelio -- really? Can you point to any authentic source for reference? I am not sure he made Apple a 3 billion stock pile when Apple had a multi-billion dollar loss the year before Steve Jobs joined. And you are trying to make it sound like Steve Jobs was a hitler who kicked off Amelio who should have been the CEO of Apple. Are you nuts?

One more -- you mention Apple "stole" the developers from C&G, a MP3 software firm. Please can you describe more what you meant -- I never knew one could "steal" developers.... Apple had hired 4 of their key employees --- by making them an offer which they could have declined obviously but they didn't, because they wanted to join Apple -- i am not sure how this means anything. Lot of things like this happen in the industry, for example, Juniper frequently hires a bunch of developers from Cisco's team for a product, when they want to start a new similar product.

Overall - I obviously agree Steve was not a "polite" person -- he used to talk harshly and make aggressive moves business wise. But he did all of it for passion of making something that will change the market upside down. And he did that, multiple times. With innovative ideas. Who could have started a retail store chain in 2001 for an electronics company? And made it successful today when all retail is failing...

All his achievements are known to everybody. He was a person that had failings like everybody else, but he pursued his passion with such a vigor, that he made a massive impact on everything he did. He moved industries forward, with a sudden, immense push, multiple times.

Having an app store is not enough... Was it popular, on the same order of magnitude as is the iPhone App Store? Inventing is nice, but making it appealing so that everybody wants to use it, finds it useful, thats what makes an impact. But okay I am fine with App Store not being considered a big innovation.

But multi-touch, inertial scrolling, mobile safari (With ability to zoom in and out of text), pinching to zoom, the idea of not wasting any space for keys, changing orientation of screen based on actual orientation, proximity sensor, visual voicemail, no carrier crapware, etc etc etc including the app store -- made the iPhone a major leap in smartphones -- that vaulted the whole industry an order or two of magnitude above where they were at that time -- I feel.

Android took all of this from the iPhone. In fact, Android as a phone is very similar to iPhone -- except for minor usability tweaks, and more flexibility to customize. I definitely think Android is a derivative product of the iPhone.

Thats a percentage of revenues, and Apple's revenues are very high. Also -- I agree Microsoft spends a lot of money on research in their "Microsoft Research" division, but the fact is, most of their research does not end up in products. I don't know about Google - I don't think they spend a lot on Research...the link you pointed to does not talk about Google. :-)

"the touch models were more popular".... are you kidding? Are you saying touch smartphones were popular before iPhones? Do you have any statistics?

I hadn't seen even one of these before the iPhone (there were a few people who used them, but i would say their market share would be less than 1% in smartphones)

i don't see this bug...

ESR: I dont think Steve Jobs has ever claimed he/Apple “invented” the PC, Smartphone, AppStore, iTunes, iPad , etc. Steve Jobs was not an inventor. He “popularized” the technology to the masses — and thats what causes the technology to make an impact. If Xerox invented the GUI, but they sold a couple of computers using it, which flopped, and also had on some terminals for controlling their printers, thats it. The technology was going in waste. Steve recognized the technology had potential to be used for personal computers for everybody, developed the technology a lot, and marketed a computer that a lot of people bought or atleast was noticed enough for the mass-marketer Windows to copy it and spread it further. I think Steve played a very very key role here in popularizing the GUI and developing the GUI. The PC’s that were sold were better because of it. Similar in the iPhone — I have never used the Dagger or whatever it was — but most people I know havent heard of it, or used it. It would have remained a model, which a few people used — what impact would have. It is the typically fallacy of scientists that they recognize “invention” as being the most valuable activity — but they forget that unless the invention is used by the masses, it could be limited to none or very little impact on the world. I dont know how the UI of the hiptop was — but the iPhone was the first smartphone to be really easy-to-use and powerful in surfing the internet, and brought in popular use of multi-touch touchscreens (they were not invented in the iPhone, but were hardly in use before it). It also brought a popular App Store to the market. Thats where in lies the contribution of the iPhone. Thats why all the smartphones borrowed a lot of ideas from the iphone over the next years — including your favorite android — (please dont deny, ask Andy Rubin) — and all the smartphones that are available in the market are better off because of it. Also it popularized smartphone and made it accessible to the masses — earlier smartphones were so clumsy to use, they were used only by a few. Today they are popular with everybody, and have apps that can do powerful stuff — which wouldnt have been there without the iphone. Taking a single minded view that just because Apple controls the app store (but keeps safari uncontrolled), it is bad is almost childish in my opinion. Most people who use the phone dont want the fear of downloading apps from an app store like the Android market where nobody has checked the app out before you, and has routinely malicious software. Claiming that Steve Jobs made locked-in products, so he did more harm than good — is craziness. I have lost all faith in your judgement reading this article. He did not hypnotize anybody. He marketed the products. If people who bought it first wouldnt have liked it, it would have never become popular. But the fact is, they liked it. Millions of people liked the iphone. And thats why Android is also as good as it is today…. iPhone made the average smartphone available in the market “Smart”, and hundreds of millions of smartphone users today are better off because of it.

Granularity is good -- but as far as I know people ignore the security permissions warnings, because they are hard to understand, and its difficult to understand why would an app need them, and most people generally just click yes. So practically, it does not really help (thats the impression i got from reading online) For anti-virus apps, its not about why people buy (customer ignorance), but their existence and feasibility implies apps have the power to monitor the system closely. App store review helps ... when android store lists apps like these: http://photos.appleinsider.com/android.market.ios.002.jpg how can you trust the android store more or equal to the apple app store?

I am not sure Android sandboxes that well. (I dont have much knowhow of android sdk btw). But from the applications that are available on the android market - I know that people android apps can do more harm than on iOS, they have more power in android (for example, there are anti-virus apps on android! task killers!, apps can access your photos without you knowing it and upload them somewhere, app launchers, integrate with dialer, etc)