rustynails77

>But yes, engineering should be the focus and people assume the worst with Apple.

Some people sometimes assume the worst of Apple, or Microsoft or Google, or [insert name of company here]. One of the things that can cause strong anti-Apple sentiment are the rabid fanboys (ie. postings like Nirvana's). They paint Apple to be patron saints - and when reality hits (like it did for me with antenna-gate), users are annoyed because of the unrealistic expectations, but also because of the RDF created by Fanboys. For the record, I think Apple have shown the phone industry a thing or two about engineering excellent products while maintaining a strong focus and excellent compromises. I just wish the rabid Fanboys would shut up, or present a balanced view ... it would make Apple a lot easier to respect.

I like the idea of electric cars, but their dirty secret is not the CO2 from power plants - it's the batteries. They're full of deadly toxins and they don't last very long. What happens to these batteries when they're no longer useful??? I'm still banking on battery technology improving to the point that this disadvantage is far less hazardous to the environment.

>seem to mostly be "You're awesome, I just wanted to ask, how did you get so awesome?"

To be fair, that's why I come to HN instead of Reddit (which I NEVER visit). HN is an amazing site with many high quality posts - I think Reddit at the opposite end of the spectrum - because that's what it was when I last looked at it years ago.

A variant of this idea by the OP could work if it was handled correctly - for example, if Richard Branson was invited to talk about establishing successful corporate cultures. If there was an emphasis on a specific individual with a specific topic, then this could work.

Lastly, please don't turn HN into Reddit. I honestly believe this would kill the exact thing that makes this site unique.

I know this is offtopic, but it's a great point... There's a paragraph that says "This is a fair point." next to it. It basically says that we all stand on the shoulders of giants - and that other inventions allow new inventions to be discovered/developed. This is the EXACT reason I disagree with most patents.

Apologies for the off-topic rant, but it's one of my passions. I'm most probably preaching to the converted.

As a long term user with no vested interest in Adioso, it's normally fairly quick (ie. a few seconds at most). It's a great website - i've used it for a few years now - I think almost since day 1 :)

I see it differently. This person behaved extremely aggressively and clearly unethically. You want them to get off free? If nothing is done, this person will show remorse for a short time, and then be right back in the game. In my industry, some choose to behave unethically - even if it's within the bounds of the rules. I like to see these people smacked down because they -choose- to behave an a nasty manner.

WWII baby. The US blackmailed the UK out of its patents (in return for assistance) and the US basically took all of Germany's IP as payment. I'll get modded to hell for that - but it had to be said.

GMaps doesn't totally annihilate Apple maps. I think that's his point.

I'm not the grand-parent poster, and no Apple fanboy ... but I am inclined to agree with his sentiment.

One of my fellow Australians posted. Here's my review of Google Maps, using his post as a basis for my post ;)

My findings: For searching. Google Maps has a much better autocomplete all round. Faster, more readable and elegant. Once you have selected an entry then Apple Maps jumps straight there. Google Maps does a handy move animation showing me the relative location, although it slows things down a litte. I LOVE this feature. For panning. Apple Maps is equivalent to Google Maps. Apple Maps has a fade in transition for loaded tiles which is a nice touch. For POIs. Apple Maps is showing me a few POIs - often in the wrong place. Google Maps is showing me all key POIs in exactly the right place. Google Maps is the first mapping product to get my home address correct (TomTom, Navigon, Garmin, Apple).

For UI. Google Maps has a nicer UI. Apple Maps requires you to click on a small button which goes to a separate screen with more options. I really like the sidebar that Google implemented.

Overall. Google Maps has much better street data and nicer UI. Apple Maps had a smooth UI, showed POIs in the wrong spot here in Australia.

I think the competition is great. Looking forward to seeing if Apple can lift their socks on the next incarnation of Maps - they have a LONG way to go.

This was exactly my experience. My iPhone struggled to understand me at times (albeit only 2 out of 20 times) - but the Nexus S (a fairly old phone) understood me 20 out of 20 times. It really whipped the pants off Apple - I was quite surprised. To see so many posts above say that Google Voice was far below par of Apple was a surprise to me. Note: I haven't tested IOS6 yet, so things may be different.

Wow. I haven't tested IOS6 with SIRI, but when it was Google Voice v/s Siri on IOS 5.1.1 - there was no comparison. Google voice won hands down. Even in a noisy environment. I've just bought a second hand iPhone 4s that will be upgraded to IOS6 so I can compare for myself. Until a month ago, Google was easily king of the hill.

A friend of mine had an external WD drive that I could not get to work Under Windows 7. It worked under Linux, but not windows.

I finally found out that there was an incorrect drive letter allocation (stuffed if I know why). We frigged around trying to allocate a drive letter through admin settings. We finally got it to work, but it wouldn't recognise the file system. We reformatted it and it worked fine.

Then there was the time the keyboard wouldn't work under Windows 7. It appeared and disappeared. It also worked under Ubuntu.

The point is that your mileage will vary depending on the hardware and operating system. I find Linux easier to fault find, whereas Windows is a disaster to fault find. My Windows faults normally end up with "just re-format it and start again".

Not me. I installed Windows 8 as a partition. It was a nightmare. There are four corners of the screen that seem to do different things when you point there. After about two weeks of casual use, I gave up and went back to Windows 7. My head seriously hurt trying to remember (guess) which corner did what, in order to go "back and forth" between the different UI paradigms (which by the way is UNNECESSARY to have more than one paradigm on my UI). I have no interest in the new "tablet" paradigm that's being forced onto desktops. It doesn't make sense. I dumped Ubuntu for a similar reason (Unity was/is awful) - I put up with it in Ubuntu for about 8 months. I now run Windows 7 and Linux Mint. Now you may argue that I wasn't committed to learning the new UI after only two weeks, but you know what? It either works, or it doesn't. I could learn to walk with a warn-out hip and a limp, but it doesn't make it ideal or optimal.

YMMV with Apple TV. Specs are here, http://www.apple.com/appletv/specs.html

If you're like me, it will play about 10% of my collection. WDTV Live, on the other hand, plays everything.

If you're in the Apple eco-system, Apple TV is great. For those who aren't, it's Apple's way or the highway. I'm half in Apple, half out of Apple, and it's a total nightmare.

And jobsy bashed tablets not long before he released the iPad. What jobsy said publicly was not a good basis for what he believed.

It's brave to say Jobsy held Apple back - he brought Apple back from the ashes.

Jobsy supposedly passed on much advice to Tim Cook - on where to go with the next few models. Jobsy may not have been against 4G LTE and a 4 inch screen - he may have recommended Tim to go down that path.

And? The specs for the Nexus 7 out-performed the iPhone 5 - even though it was released earlier. You could argue that this is quad-core and apps need to be coded to use quad cores etc etc. The point is that I don't understand your point. I agree that Apple do more than marketing, but marketing is one of their greatest strengths .. prior to this Samsung trial at least.. What was a BAD PR move.

Not sure what you mean here, but I agree largely with the grand-parent poster. Apple are struggling to innovate and others are catching up (not just Android). So rather than try to innovate, they are litigating. In some ways it's a good sign, in other ways it's bad. The market is maturing, but Apple is struggling to keep in the driving seat - and they are being overtaken by others.

In the end, I want what's best for us all. Healthy competition.

Don't dismiss Jobsy's (or his team's) contributions out of hand. They knew that an app store was key to the success of Apple's new device, so they made minimal profit off the App store.

What Jobsy did was more than marketing - but a lot of it was marketing. He drove things in a particular direction, which makes him somewhat of a visionary - not just a marketer.

On the other hand, I agree with the great grand-parent poster. What Apple had was not significantly better, just packaged better. I view that as a visionary rather than marketing.

Excellent point. On the iPad, my young kids can do most things easily, except deal with these advertisements. It usually exits the app, brings up Safari and they wonder what's going on. The second most annoying thing is OpenFeint - Can't this be globally turned off?

>I agree

A quick Google search will tell you that there are non-trivial problems all over the world in major cities at major landmarks with Apple maps.

It's nice that you agree with the parent poster that Apple Maps are fantastic, but let me say that I don't think so. There are far too many obvious and MAJOR cockups (eg. Hong Kong is misplaced - it's not even on the island, Tokyo's main railway is missing, etc.) ... but you think that's Fantastic??

I will point you to Garmin and TomTom as two examples of maps that FAR exceed Apple's "fantastic" offering.

In 6 months time, the landscape will (hopefully) be different ... but to call this offering fantastic is ignorant.

No, but the point is that Apple needed to break away from Google at some point (note: the timeframe to breakaway is subjective). I would say that within 6 months, things will be a lot better for Apple. If they'd stayed with Google, the answer would still be "no" in 6 months.

There are enough articles that re-enforce that Apple Maps (in its current incarnation) are sorely lacking, even in popular areas... A few examples,

- Park Hyatt Tokyo - Tokyo Railway Station (the MAIN station) - Paddington Station in London - Melbourne Aus and Frankfurt Germany Airport roads - Hong Kong is misplaced http://www.ausbt.com.au/6-reasons-travellers-should-be-wary-...

The list goes on across the net. I support several other posters in that only an Apple fan would say that the maps are good overall. All you will hear from these people is how TomTom had a bad map 5 years ago, or how Garmin is missing a 3 year old suburb in their area. The fact is that in this instance, Apple stuffed up severely.

It was a brave decision of Apple to go ahead with this version of maps - they would have known full well just how bad it was. Maybe it's the kick in the butt that Apple needed to catch up quickly. I expect that within 6 months, the situation will be a lot better for Apple.

I like that idea, and I believe it rings true with most responsible people. However, it's difficult to measure.

As an example, in the recent Apple v/s Samsung, if it weren't for Apple, we would still be dealing with shitty Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson phones with crap OSes, no decent applications, and the phones would be anything but smart - because there was no need to improve. Once Apple made everyone lift their game, their strategy has been to sue all large players aggressively to ensure they can't implement the things that Apple used, no matter how trivial (eg. the green telephone icon). On one hand you can argue that a "slide to unlock" was not done before on a smart-phone and deserves protection. On the other hand, you can argue that it's a very obvious solution for touch screens and someone else would have easily come up with it. You could also argue there's prior art (but that's another story). So ... In this instance, did Apple drive innovation? Yes. Was it necessary for Innovation? Maybe. Would the innovation have happened if Apple hadn't driven it? Not any time soon.

In my view, your definition needs to be tighter to cover scenarios such as these.

In case the Apple fans get their knickers in a knot, Apple aren't the only ones suing others over trivialities. The industry has been locked in a stale-mate for a long time.

This article reminds me just how much Apple has driven technology forward.

For clarification for Android lovers... This doesn't mean that Apple invented all of this.. It's a recognition that without someone driving expectations of the smartphone industry, it stagnates - Apple is the driver.

For clarification for Apple lovers... This doesn't mean that Apple invented all of this.. It's a recognition that without someone driving expectations of the smartphone industry, it stagnates - Apple is the driver.

I support your figures. However, my efficiency of my inverter is 98% rather than 90%. I'd also clarify that the average during winter is a lot less than 20kWhr/day ... I know you said it was a maxinum :) It's most probably about 14kWh for me.

I rarely experienced that with megaupload. I won't say it never happened though.

I quite like Apple's new connector - particularly the new bi-directional insertion. However, I've never had an issue with MicroUSB, inserting or removing. Care to elaborate? I've used them on at least 20 devices, if not more.

I can assure you that that lack of a decent notification centre (like the one Android has had for a long time) is not style, taste or anything else. It's a MAJOR pain in the ass.

To be able to disable wireless with a wipe and a tap is a VERY, VERY, VERY (you get the idea) useful feature.

As I said before, this is not style, taste or anything else but a MAJOR pain.

If you want to talk about manipulating diamond prices, just read about DeBeers - you would be hard pressed to manipulate any market more than diamonds. I wouldn't buy a diamond if you paid me. Want to know the real value of a diamond? Try to sell it. Then I PROMISE you will know the value of a diamond.