[holymadness]

Originally Posted by PatNY

Why the need to personally insult forum members you disagree with? Your inability to stick to the issues and tendency to throw around personal insults show a thin skin and defensiveness that undermines the points you're trying to make.

I seem to have some difficulty understanding a subtlety of the mobileread forum code of conduct. It seems it's frowned upon to say "X is an idiot for believing Y" but perfectly acceptable to say "People who believe Y are idiots," even if those people happen to be posting in that same thread. Why this should be is unclear, but it would be nice if those who did it didn't feign shock and outrage when the level of discourse, which they began by trampling into the mud, isn't civil enough.

I have been discouraged from using the dreaded T-word when describing people in these threads, so let me just say that you and many of the people who share your opinions tend to post provocative messages with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument. You call Apple users brainwashed sheep, you spend all your time in Apple threads dumping on their products and the people who buy them, you spam mocking videos and pictures and high-five each other over your little jokes. Every second post is a "LOL yeah!" or "So true!" In other words, you seek it out, then complain about it. Forgive me for rolling my eyes.

Size, yes. But I don't know that the shape of a device would have to change much by adding a card slot (so long as it was included at the inception of the design). Nor do I see how a card slot would significantly impact battery life and heat dispersion. And there would be no need to introduce a file system. It's easy to restrict card content to media which would have virtually zero impact on the GUI.

What is there to say else but that you are wrong?

Size and shape go hand in hand, so if you admit one you necessarily admit the other. As things stand in the iPhone, there is simply no room to add a SD card reader. If you were to add one into the current form factor, you would have to remove other elements or crowd the interior. It is one or the other and both entail sacrifices.

Please don't feign naīveté about the complexity external storage would add to iOS. Currently, iOS users never need to worry about managing their media. To add external storage would require making choices about where to store one's music and one's apps, what would happen if the card was swapped out, where files go if one drive becomes full and the other has space on it. These are not world-ending changes, but they are contrary to Apple's approach to iOS.

Perhaps the bias against Apple is so strong because they've earned it. Their anti-competitive litigious behavior is regarded as excessive and I'm not aware of any of Apple's competitors being nearly as aggressive -- or frivolous -- in the courts.

It is pretty funny to see someone choose, of all the companies in the world to hate, Apple. Instead of say, Monsanto, Bank of America, or BP. Well, nevermind. To each his own, though your priorities say a lot about you.

In any case, Apple is no more litigous than any other tech company. They just receive more press for it. You'll have to find a better reason than that.

And finally, bias is bias. It's not clear why we should take anything you say seriously when you admit you can't be objective.

The lower base price of their comparable products greatly mitigates the lack of an SD card or the huge jump in prices one pays to get extra built-in storage.

Heh, amusing.

Can you point to a few instances in this thread or any other thread on the first page of the News forum where someone predicted the demise of Apple for any of the reasons you cite? Where the person clearly was not joking around or being hyperbolic?

While many of us are very critical of Apple's practices, I can't remember seeing serious predictions of the company's demise.

Shrug, I'm not going to go through 30 pages to satisfy your pendantry for block quotes. It has been said and often over the last few weeks that I've posted regularly here. Do a search.