I'm glad Apple isn't making an ebook reader

[=X=]

Originally Posted by petermillard

Guys, the simple truth is that most iPod/iPhone/iTouch owners seem to be quite happily using iTunes, iTunes store, the App store etc... without any problems or issues. Now perhaps that's because they're easily pleased, perhaps it's because they don't know any better, or perhaps it's because the whole simple, straightforward painless process (which it is for most people) makes it easy to get content onto their player.

Right tell that to my brother who found it ironic that he could not use his new iPod with his MAC he had to use his windows PC to sync.

BTW all his Mac friends gave him all the same excellent advice. Buy an new Mac. It's not a real solution if you have to upgrade an OS or computer just to get the latest gadget to work.

Personally I think easy to use and "reliable" are more hype than truth. Maybe they where true at one time but defiantly not today.

Originally Posted by petermillard

And as an aside, have you noticed that it always seems to be the techies that get most upset with Apple - possibly because they're trying to do the very things that Apple don't want done?

Well going back to the OP he commented on how hard it was to read on an iPod .... oh that's right wasn't it Jobs that said people don't read anymore.

=X=

[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Hehe, we will be easy on you.

Good, because I am such a delicate, little flower. Ask anyone.

You suffered enough typing all that on that iphone keyboard (oh wait, we finally got a landscape version that can be used in a few select programs last June!).

I'd hoped (and I suspect you did) recognize the irony of that sig, "Sent from my iPhone". As you no doubt recall, it's the default on the iPhone's mail app (sub. "iPod" as appropriate). That always struck me as a tad hubristic, though I did see once the suggestion to use it at times (even from your workstation) if ever you wanted to give someone the impression you were on-the-go and too rushed to talk. No-one would believe that from relaxed and lethargic me though.

Sorry, for the rant.

'S okay. I'll return the same for my response. Sometimes you need to get those burrs out from 'neath your seat, eh?

Just pointing out that the iphone is easy to use but with very limited functionality. And after all we non-believers have to take all that incessant chanting from those Apple fanboys (who must inject their nonsense into every discussion about any phone on the web, it seems) we have to get our voices heard occasionally. Enjoy your iphone!

The iPhone is not limited for my own requirements, and those requirements are the ones by which I select my purchases, and not by those of others. I have not "set the bar low" in that selection - I have selected it at exactly the right position (not "height") for me. I am satisfied...pleased even. How that satisfaction and pleasure transfers to others, I do not know, and usually only try to recommend anything within the bounds of my explicit experience, knowledge & subjectivity. All of which leads me too...

...All fanboys (of any brand) can behave like twats. I understand & empathise with the annoyance. I am not one. I have bought some Apple products recently, mostly for reasons unrelated to notions of technical advantage. I still mostly use my Ubuntu lappy (Fujitsu FWIW). I enjoy my Apple products, but am not without any criticism (e.g. I want to bounce my gods-damned "Mighty Mouse" off Jobs's dome most days). Similar to the way you dislike the fanboy religious advocacy, I am frustrated by the anti-Apple Mob's generalisation of all of their customers. Actually, I've never rightly understood how corporate products inspire such vehement loyalty. To me, they're just products that I pay money for to fit a need/want. I've better things to expend my passion on.

Cheers,
Marc
Created very slowly then sent from my iPhone

[Ea]

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

Well, I have a Palm E2, I don't use mail or Web at my iPhone, no music or movies, only Memos, Documents To Go and Mobipocket. It synchronizes always well. But it's no Windows Mobile but Palm OS, perhaps that's the difference. And I've had only a reason to buy iPhone (perhaps waiting I would have got the same with Palm Pre) and it's called Amazon.

I've heard Palm should work well - after all it's developed directly for a mobile device. I just had the bad luck of getting Windows Mobile.

Originally Posted by HansTWN

...
If you need to use your phone like a real computer (like I do), then run from the iphone as fast as you can.

But you can't use a Windows Mobile PDA as real computer either. You need a real computer for that - not the crippled Windows Mobile interface.

You're obviously a Microsoft fanboy since you paint everyone who even dares to like the experience of an Apple interface, as Apple fanboys/girls

I can't understand how you could stand your Windows Mobile PDA.
I suffered enough typing with a tiny pen on a minuscule keyboard. I suffered enough waiting for the f****** device to start up applications- and then saving it - and the Dell Axim 51 was a decent device. I suffered enough non-working syncing (Microsoft: sorry, we can't do it better - better luck next time). I suffered enough general lack of functionality. Windows Mobile 5.0 was pure hell. Perhaps that's why I like the iPhone OS - *anything* is an improvement Have you thought about that, Hans?

Originally Posted by montsnmags

As many here can vouch, I'm just an ignorant, brain-dead, mouth-breathing blob that's just been waiting for Apple marketing to imprint its hype and logo and shiny-shinies into that willing bowl of grey porridge contained by my bowl of a skull. Would that I could progress beyond these reflexive, beastial urges inspired by flashy corporate design, and perhaps extend myself along the evolutionary branch beyond my iPod Touch and newly purchased iPhone to maybe reach those who have left me in their independently intelligent wake...but, alas, I am destined to struggle, be constrained, distracted, by my overwhelming need to be like everyone else - part of the cool crowd - and to fight the bondage of my own tiny forebrain bashing against this wall of proprietary, technical limitations.

Oooh, count me in! Count me in! Me stoopid, too

[Lycoming]

Stoooopid.

Did somebody call?

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by Ea

But you can't use a Windows Mobile PDA as real computer either. You need a real computer for that - not the crippled Windows Mobile interface.

I know someone who used his Dell PDA as a computer.

[Ea]

Originally Posted by montsnmags

...

Similar to the way you dislike the fanboy religious advocacy, I am frustrated by the anti-Apple Mob's generalisation of all of their customers. Actually, I've never rightly understood how corporate products inspire such vehement loyalty. To me, they're just products that I pay money for to fit a need/want. I've better things to expend my passion on.

Me, too. Currently I use an iMac as my main home computer, and then I have a netbook with Win7. I chose the Mac last time, because I don't want to get stuck using and learning only approach. Just like I don't read the same paper all the time so I don't get stuck in the same type of opinions. And - and I don't get why every other hardware company have been so slow to pick this up - since my work desk is in my living room, I wanted something nice to look at. I appreciate good design, it adds value to my life to have somethng nice to look at.

[Ea]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

I know someone who used his Dell PDA as a computer.

He must have been a very patient person

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by =X=

Right tell that to my brother who found it ironic that he could not use his new iPod with his MAC he had to use his windows PC to sync ...

I find that really puzzling. I have a 5th generation iPod that I used with Windows XP, until my Gateway crapped out and I swore off PCs FOREVER.

When I got my iMac, the first thing I did was to get some software that allowed me to download what was on the iPod to the Mac (at the time, the Apple geniuses by default only allowed info to flow into the iPod -- not out). Then I had to reformat the iPod's HD to allow it to sync with the Mac. A bit of a hassle, but it all worked out in the end.

BTW, "forever" didn't last too long. In addition to my iMac, I now have a HP that I use for all my main computing, but I still use the iMac to synchronize the iPod.

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by rjwebby

There are definitely pluses and minuses to Apple's decision to control the flow of content. I think pluses vastly outweigh minuses. I don't know about you, but I have NEVER had a virus on any of my apple computers in 10 years.

In 15 years with continuous Internet access, I've had only one virus. And I have Windows.

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Wow, bro – I'm never had any problems running iTunes under Windows.

The new version of iTunes only can work at Windows XP SP2 or upper. In my case, I've no problem because I bought a netbook this year, and it runs XP, but in my desktop (W2000) and laptop (XP SP 1) I can't use it. Yes, I've got relics I know, but what am I going to do? They work.

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by Ea

I've heard Palm should work well - after all it's developed directly for a mobile device. I just had the bad luck of getting Windows Mobile.

Well, I avoid Windows if I can Sometimes I can't do it. And, by the way, I don't say that people who like iPhone, or Apple products or as they like, are stupid, have low standards or anything else.

The iPhone is very good for reading (I don't agree with Nate in that) and multimedia tasks, very good interface (a bit wasted with me, a term and vi girl) but, for me, it lacks a very important thing (for people is an advantage): I want to send and receive data through a cable, not air, not WI-FI (I don't have), not Internet (I don't trust), only my old and comfy cable. That's the main lack for me.

[kovidgoyal]

Yeah it does depend very much on your view of functionality. I tend to expect my general purpose computers to be just that, general purpose. But then I have the ability to get the most out of a general purpose computer. I don't deny that for people that don't, a limited purpose computer may be better.

But I do get very annoyed by people that claim that Apple products "just work". They only "just work" if used only with other apple products. I had a part time job as a sysadmin while doing my Ph.D. and unfortunately this was around the time an Apple craze was sweeping campuses and boy were those Macs a pain and a half to integrate into existing networks.

What really used to irritate me was how apple would happily use open source technology and then change it subtly so that it no longer interoperated with unchanged versions of itself. Just one example being CUPS (the printing stack) which they used largely unchanged from the open source world, expect that they changed the default path for printers which meant that users would have to jump through countless hoops to get their pre-Tiger Macs to recognize the cups exported printers on the network.

Originally Posted by petermillard

With respect, that depends very much on your view of 'functionality' doesn't it? For example, my elderly (mid-80s) father loves the fact that his iPod synchronises automatically with iTunes (running on Windows Vista, btw, which he set up on his own without any problem) when he plugs it in, but hates the way his Sony Reader needs some user intervention to transfer his latest books across. Interestingly, my teenage children feel exactly the same, and like, I suspect, the vast majority of people, that's all the functionality they need, and exactly what Apple provides.

And as an aside, have you noticed that it always seems to be the techies that get most upset with Apple - possibly because they're trying to do the very things that Apple don't want done? Or perhaps because they can see that it could be so much better if only.... - you know, part of the whole "push the door marked pull" thing??

So yes, on that level of 'functionality' Apple generally produces 'closed' systems (the original iPhone didn't even have a third-party App store at launch, remember) - but I'm a little bewildered as to why this seems to come as such a surprise to you...

Cheers, Pete.

[=X=]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I find that really puzzling. I have a 5th generation iPod that I used with Windows XP, until my Gateway crapped out and I swore off PCs FOREVER.

When I got my iMac, the first thing I did was to get some software that allowed me to download what was on the iPod to the Mac (at the time, the Apple geniuses by default only allowed info to flow into the iPod -- not out). Then I had to reformat the iPod's HD to allow it to sync with the Mac. A bit of a hassle, but it all worked out in the end.

BTW, "forever" didn't last too long. In addition to my iMac, I now have a HP that I use for all my main computing, but I still use the iMac to synchronize the iPod.

He had and Mac, before they switch to the PC hardware. Years later he received an iPod as a gift and downloaded latest iTuned thinking a Mac hardware should work seamlessly with Mac hardware. However the iTunes required a newer component to install and that component required a newer OS. In effect he had to upgrade his OS or buy a new machine in order to

Most people I know who leave Windows for Mac tend to return to windows for many different reasons. Not making a generalization here, it's just been my experience.

=X=

[Donnageddon]

Me Likey my iPod Touch. Shiny.

[badgoodDeb]

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

The new version of iTunes only can work at Windows XP SP2 or upper. In my case, I've no problem because I bought a netbook this year, and it runs XP, but in my desktop (W2000) and laptop (XP SP 1) I can't use it. Yes, I've got relics I know, but what am I going to do? They work.

Originally Posted by =X=

He had and Mac, before they switch to the PC hardware. Years later he received an iPod as a gift and downloaded latest iTuned thinking a Mac hardware should work seamlessly with Mac hardware. However the iTunes required a newer component to install and that component required a newer OS. In effect he had to upgrade his OS or buy a new machine.
=X=

Anybody else notice that both people have the same complaint? "It doesn't work on my platform" really means "I have an older setup and I don't want to upgrade." So no, newer toys won't always work!