iPhone Consumer Reports doesn't recommend iPhone 4

[Maggie Leung]

Originally Posted by joblack

At least you get an (Internet) connection with Vista

Actually, I had to scrape it off my new laptop after wasting lots of time trying to make it work. If I had a physical copy of Vista, I would have flung it out a window. I don't have the new iPhone, but I would happily choose it over Vista if they'd both been released at the same time.

[joblack]

At least Vista problems are solvable by a software update - that's not possible with the iPhone 4 .

Anyway, I have skipped Vista completely but now I'm using Windows 7 (disabled AERO and other improvements) and it's working fine.

I like Linux more but as a Windows system Windows 7 is fine.

[Maggie Leung]

Originally Posted by joblack

At least Vista problems are solvable by a software update - that's not possible with the iPhone 4 .

Anyway, I have skipped Vista completely but now I'm using Windows 7 (disabled AERO and other improvements) and it's working fine.

I like Linux more but as a Windows system Windows 7 is fine.

Apparently you can put a case on the phone, which solves the problem. Vista was a mess that cost people time and money. They eventually fixed it, but it was ridiculous to release such a POS in the first place. Windows 7 is much better.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Maggie Leung

Apparently you can put a case on the phone, which solves the problem. Vista was a mess that cost people time and money. They eventually fixed it, but it was ridiculous to release such a POS in the first place. Windows 7 is much better.

The problem was not with Vista. Vista was absolutely fine. The issue was that many applications "broke the rules", and didn't work correctly under Vista - eg by trying to save files in the program's installation directory rather than under "Documents and Settings", despite Microsoft having told developers right from the days of Windows 95 "don't do that".

Programs that were correctly written according to Microsoft's programming guidelines worked absolutely fine under Vista. I write and sell an astronomy program, for example, whose Windows 95 version worked "out of the box" on Vista and continues to work perfectly under Windows 7. There are a lot of rather unprofessional software developers out there who thought that just because a particular "rule" wasn't enforced in earlier versions of Windows that it was OK to break it. They (and their customers) got bitten hard by Vista, which DID enforce the rules.

The fault lay entirely with the developers - people had been asking for a version of Windows with much more stringent security - in Vista that's exactly what they got.

[Maggie Leung]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The problem was not with Vista. Vista was absolutely fine. The issue was that many applications "broke the rules", and didn't work correctly under Vista - eg by trying to save files in the program's installation directory rather than under "Documents and Settings", despite Microsoft having told developers right from the days of Windows 95 "don't do that".

Programs that were correctly written according to Microsoft's programming guidelines worked absolutely fine under Vista. I write and sell an astronomy program, for example, whose Windows 95 version worked "out of the box" on Vista and continues to work perfectly under Windows 7. There are a lot of rather unprofessional software developers out there who thought that just because a particular "rule" wasn't enforced in earlier versions of Windows that it was OK to break it. They (and their customers) got bitten hard by Vista, which DID enforce the rules.

The fault lay entirely with the developers - people had been asking for a version of Windows with much more stringent security - in Vista that's exactly what they got.

I bought a new laptop because mine was sluggish. It came preloaded with Vista. I added nothing to the laptop and it was still churning slower than my older laptop. If the problem was other software, it would've all come preloaded.

I'm not a tech person. I do vanilla stuff with my computers. I stripped Vista and loaded whatever version of Windows I had at the time and the laptop suddenly worked. Before I stripped Vista, I went online to try to figure out what was wrong. Lots of people were bitching. I read about Microsoft execs who'd run into the same problems. One of 'em actually said that Vista had turned his pricey computer into a nearly useless machine. His wording was something like "a $2,000 e-mail machine" or such. (This was years ago, so the wording is as close as I can remember.)

[HarryT]

Vista certainly had higher hardware requirements, yes. In particular, you needed more memory than a lot of machines came supplied with at the time.

I bet, though, that if you were to let someone who's used to a Windows 7 machine use a modern laptop running Vista, they honestly wouldn't know the difference.

[Bremen Cole]

Originally Posted by joblack

At least Vista problems are solvable by a software update - that's not possible with the iPhone 4 .

Anyway, I have skipped Vista completely but now I'm using Windows 7 (disabled AERO and other improvements) and it's working fine.

I like Linux more but as a Windows system Windows 7 is fine.

Disabling AERO is a great idea. As crazy as it sounds, running Windows 7 Starter on my desktop gives me the best performance of any OS ever. If you can live without wallpaper (I run software, not gaze at my desktop), and watching DVD movies on your computer, Starter is awesome. I use the desktop for Photoshop and music production and some gaming (Bioshock, Fallout...etc) Starter is the fastest and most stable OS I have ever used. Boots up in 30 seconds, no driver issues, great WIFI, just works. It has NEVER crashed, even my Ipad can't say that..... (iPad locked up once, had to re-boot.... reminded me of the old Win 95 days....)

[Yoshi 1080]

Originally Posted by joblack

With the argument of the "official communications channel" you would have to be serious about all these arrogant nonsense Steve Jobs was writing from his email account.

Official E-Mail address from the company CEO ...

Yes, that's what I meant be saying that Apple doesn't react correctly. As much as I like a CEO replying to emails, Jobs’s comment about not holding the iPhone 4 that way was absolutely inappropriate. He is the CEO of Apple, he comments on products of his company, so obviously, his statements are somewhat reflecting Apple’s policy.

Originally Posted by joblack

At least Vista problems are solvable by a software update - that's not possible with the iPhone 4 .

What, you mean Windows 7? That came out 3 years later and had to be purchased again, so I wouldn't exactly call that a software update. Seriously, Vista was a bad operating system, from start to end. It had much too high system requirements, it was slow, its UAC was badly implemented (“Do you want to do this? Yes? Really? Are you sure? Don't you wanna think about this again? Let's sleep over it, I’m going into hibernate ...”), and, frankly, it was just as unintuitive as any Windows before that. With the difference that it shuffled the positions of many options just for the sake of pretending to be new. Sure it introduced some great technologies like Direct X 10 and the Enhanced Video Renderer, the font smoothing technique Cleartype got overhauled as well, but eventually it was just not enough to compensate all the things that were just bad. Windows Vista was the product of a complete miss-management, and that clearly shows.

The iPhone 4 problems on the other hand are solvable with a case for 10 bucks, right now. If needed anyway, since not everyone is affected. So I’m not sure if this is really comparable.

Plus, Apple is holding a press conference regarding the iPhone tomorrow and there is indication by iFixIt.com that Apple may already be shipping out modified iPhones which feature a special coating atop of the antennas which reduces the issue.

[joblack]

Originally Posted by Maggie Leung

Apparently you can put a case on the phone, which solves the problem. Vista was a mess that cost people time and money. They eventually fixed it, but it was ridiculous to release such a POS in the first place. Windows 7 is much better.

Yes it solves it. And who pays the 30 Euro for this penny article .

[joblack]

Originally Posted by Bremen Cole

Disabling AERO is a great idea. As crazy as it sounds, running Windows 7 Starter on my desktop gives me the best performance of any OS ever. If you can live without wallpaper (I run software, not gaze at my desktop), and watching DVD movies on your computer, Starter is awesome. I use the desktop for Photoshop and music production and some gaming (Bioshock, Fallout...etc) Starter is the fastest and most stable OS I have ever used. Boots up in 30 seconds, no driver issues, great WIFI, just works. It has NEVER crashed, even my Ipad can't say that..... (iPad locked up once, had to re-boot.... reminded me of the old Win 95 days....)

My Win 7 looks still like a Win 2000 and I love it. All these (unnecessary) eyecandy can't be shown to customers - it's embarrassing.

Don't get me wrong, I like a better usability but must it be these AERO stuff. It looks like a GUI for kids.

It's funny - with the old GUI I have more space to work (enabled AERO needs more display space).

[joblack]

Originally Posted by Yoshi 1080

What, you mean Windows 7? That came out 3 years later and had to be purchased again, so I wouldn't exactly call that a software update. Seriously, Vista was a bad operating system, from start to end. It had much too high system requirements, it was slow, its UAC was badly implemented (“Do you want to do this? Yes? Really? Are you sure? Don't you wanna think about this again? Let's sleep over it, I’m going into hibernate ...”), and, frankly, it was just as unintuitive as any Windows before that.

I don't defend Vista per se. I skipped it and jumped to Windows 7.

By the way, how many times did Apple users have to re-buy their software?

From Mac OS 9 to X? From Power Pc to Intel? From 10.4 to 10.5?

Microsoft tries to hold its backward compatibility. It's clear that this comes with some trade-offs (or usability issues).

Apple on the other hand just said: F**k the customers, we throw all old stuff away. Apple customers apparently like to re-buy everything.

[Maggie Leung]

Originally Posted by joblack

Yes it solves it. And who pays the 30 Euro for this penny article .

You should read my first post on this thread, No. 10, in which I ripped Apple for that.

You continue to argue even when there isn't anything to argue about. Vista sucked. Let's move on.

[Yoshi 1080]

Originally Posted by joblack

By the way, how many times did Apple users have to re-buy their software?

From Mac OS 9 to X? From Power Pc to Intel? From 10.4 to 10.5?

Microsoft tries to hold its backward compatibility. It's clear that this comes with some trade-offs (or usability issues).

Apple on the other hand just said: F**k the customers, we throw all old stuff away. Apple customers apparently like to re-buy everything.

And again, you found something in between the lines to bash about. I never said it was unreasonable to charge for a new operating system; it's standard procedure. But that's one of the reasons which separate a software update from an upgrade, a service pack from a new OS. So to get back to my original argument: Vista sucks, no matter if with or without a service pack. The only way to fix this is by buying a new operating system. Which is not a software update.

By the way, I have really no idea what the heck you are talking about. Apple users have to pay for every new OS, just like Windows users. So I’m not sure what I am supposed to be re-buying all the time. Do you mean third-party software? If so, what makes you think that? Sure, software for OS9 had to be replaced with OSX software at some point. But for quite some time it could be run in a virtual environment, the classic system. And after that, chances were the remaining OS9 software was very old anyway. And the same holds true for Windows 98 software on current Windows systems.

After that, there have not been real incompatibility issues. PPC code runs transparently in the Rosetta layer (comparable to the compatibility mode in Windows) and everything from OSX.0 to OSX.6 is upwards compatible. So a software that was made for OSX.0 will likely run on my Snow Leopard as well. Unfortunately, software for newer OSX versions does not necessarily run on older versions, but this is the case with Windows as well.

So to claim that “Apple customers apparently like to re-buy everything” is just ... lame.

[scottjl]

hmm.. aren't discussions on vista and the mac OS completely off topic for this thread..?

[kjk]

Back on topic:
http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/15/iph...t-it-together/

But the thing is, that trust that my mom gives to Consumer Reports was hard earned over decades of obsessive use. She trusts Consumer Reports. And if I read it I might trust it too. If they rated stuff on shininess I’d definitely subscribe. Or if they rated robots.

But suddenly Consumer Reports is crazy for the link bait. This iPhone 4 antenna problem has them going absolutely batshit crazy, and nearly every day they’re firing off a new set of recommendations, or demands, that conflict with the old recommendations and demands.

I would like to say this is just process journalism and applaud it. But they actually seem completely schizophrenic. It’s not a process, it’s chaos theory.

best part is the end:

So I’ll just tell her what she needs to know: Don’t buy anything that needs duct tape to work properly. DO NOT BUY an iPhone 4 until this problem is fixed. And then still don’t buy one because AT&T is awful. Buy an Android instead.