A year ago I walked into a Microsoft store expecting to fiddle with a Windows 7 phone for 2 minutes and walk out laughing at it. Instead I tried it for 5 minutes and walked out the door owning it. WP7 is a clean, unified, intuitive, uncluttered and very modern looking platform. My wife likes it too, and when her contract is up she's ditching Android and getting WP7.
... check the prices on some of the eBooks you think you want. If they don't choke you, then go ahead. Otherwise you might end up like me - with a Kindle I seldom use, because eBook prices are too high.
... to have to evaluate a product so carefully before buying, trying to find out if it will actually do the things that it so obviously looks like it should be able to do.
I guess we need a new product catgory name, since we can't call these things 'tablets'. They're actually captive devices, more like thin clients for specific applications run by the companies that sell them.
Who has the time or energy to figure this all out in advance? I'd advise Best Buy to get ready for a lot of returns.
At least one association is clear: 100% of 'climate skeptics' also profess hard-core right-wing political views. This isn't a coincidence. I'd also like to see a study of the statistical linkage between denial of climate science and denial of evolution. I suspect that correlation is also extremely high.
I'm in Minneapolis, near their big store in the Mall of America. It is actually pretty cool, and is exactly opposite the Apple store. The massive array of monitors is impressive. Yes, they do need some new products to draw people in. They need them desperately, and they know that. Windows 8 with 'Metro', on a tablet that doesn't weigh 8 pounds and have a whining fan, would be a good start.
... Microsoft will blow this opportunity, as they always do, because there are 2 things that will never change.
One - they'll never release anything more a shell/skin/UI over creaky, bloated old WIndows.
Two - their wonderful "partners - like HP and Acer - will always add their boatload of cr@pware, demos, "free trials", and a giant tapeworm of fake "security" from Symantec or McAfee.
As a developer, I feel that the great job MS did on .NET and its associated tools showed the real power still in the organization. I guess I actually hope that Win8 turns out to be great. I use a Windows phone and the Metro UI is also a nice piece of work, fully the equal of anything coming out of Apple.
If they'd started - 10years ago - building a totally new, flyweight OS - realizing that eventually Windows would be sinking of its own weight - they could be in a great position today, with phones and tablets. But I'm sure that internally, no 'competitor' to 'real Windows' could ever get started. Now they're trying desperate tricks to reduce the boot time to something under 90 seconds for a version of Windows that's still a year away... and they have nothing for tablets...and Windows Phone 7 is too little, too late.
... but I don't get this. When you buy shares in a company, you're buying risk. The prospectus spells that out. We can't just sue every time a stock loses money, and it doesn't matter how incompetent the management might turn out to have been - you voluntarily gave them your money to play with.
It seems like every week now a top MS exec is telling the world that it's time to upgrade, it's important, let's move ahead, we need it, you need it, you'll like it. Then I look at the price to upgrade Windows on my PC and it's about $125, like always. And at that price my interest is zero.
The idea that Microsoft used to be a major innovator is just phony nostalgia for a past that never was. Starting with DOS,the big products and ideas were acquired from others. They bought DOS, then they bought their a C compiler. They did a useless 8-bit knockoff of the Apple (Xerox) windowing system, and it went nowhere until a summer intern got that toy running in protected mode and someone at Microsoft got interested. The story continues in a similar vein. Now they're sitting on a mountain of cash managed by business-school grads like Phelps who have no real love for computers, software or even technology.
... but it's missing some important stuff. Skype, for example; and not being able to run Google Maps hurts. No Flash.
A lot of stuff has been vaguely promised in an update later this year. A lot is riding on that. If it's a big disappointment I think a lot of us will jump ship.
I bought it because of the clean, readable, sharp looking UI. If they let 'partners' like Nokia glop it up with their no-value-added cr@p, then likewise we'll assume it's headed down the well-known Windows road and isn't a long-term prospect.
This article omits the fact that libraries' ePub/Overdrive books are already supported on the Nook and are a major reason for its success against Kindle.
I don't understand this announcement and haven't found any coverage adequately explaining it. My local library already has ePub books, for which I assume they paid the publishers. Will Kindle now accept them? Or is Amazon thinking that libraries will now happily buy the same books again in Kindle format?
An article like this needs some context. Who is the author, really? What does "posted in Physics" mean? We can't find out, because the link to "Physics" is bad.
WOW. I mean WOW. And it only took them - what - 5 years to figure this out. That's how long I've been telling friends and relatives to buy Apple, so I didn't have to come to their house and spend an hour uninstalling cr@p. Microsoft is indeed listening! But they're listening from somewhere about 5 light-years away.
I walked into a store to try a W7 phone, expecting to hate it, and ended up buying it. It's a very nice UI: simple, clean, obvious and readable.
But MS has always, for reasons that are hard to fathom, allowed their hardware "partners" to turn the product into a steaming pile of pre-installed crapware that takes 5 minutes to boot and never stops tormenting you with inane popups. So let's see what happens. I'm pessimistic about the long term.
It's simple. These companies want to put the internet today, and everything that's on it, in a box, and not devote any new resources or bandwidth to that box. Instead they'll develop new ways to deliver content over digital networks, and provision those services with new investment and equipment, and charge whatever they want for it.
We'll still have the internet - or rather, the internet as of today - but it will stop evolving and growing because it won't get any new bandwidth.
These corporations have one, and only one, motivation and we all know exactly what it is.
Patients, doctors and even technically knowledgeable outsiders couldn't possibly evaluate this code in any useful way. You'd get about 500,000 lines of uncommented C or C++, the writing of which was based on decades of proprietary knowledge which is NOT 'open source' and without which the source code alone will tell you nothing.
It's fine to have the FDA auditing these companies to ensure they're working in ways that makes good engineering sense. But beyond that, we have to simply trust the makers of medical devices and accept our fate.
There's only 1 thing that might get people still using XP to upgrade: a reasonably priced upgrade. MS is still thinking they can scare those hordes of XP users into coughing up $125, to change the OS on computers that do nothing but run a browser. And it's not going to happen, ever.
I have 2 XP systems here at home, and no intention of 'upgrading' them. I have plenty of other uses for that money.
1. Announce a vastly lighter 'personal' version of Windows that boots in 10 seconds and runs built-in browser and email, and some sort of app store. And looks cool. Duh.
2. Bring their upgrade prices for mainstream Windows into reality - say, $25 - so that we all actually buy Win7, and Win8 and stay on board.
... it's really a non-event for many of us, because their upgrade prices are sky-high, and we don't need new computers right now, thanks. I have Vista only because I needed it for development work and my employer provided it. I have no interest in paying $219 for a Win7 Ultimate upgrade, and I probably won't be buying Win8 either.
So after 15 years as a Windows developer, I'm not even interested in a new release. And apparently Microsoft sees this as normal and fine.
I guess there's no longer any point to keep saying "these guys just don't get it."
Facial recognition? Is this April 1? Who the heck needs, or wants, yet another buggy layer of software preventing them from getting Windows started? I actually worked on facial recognition some years ago. It is in no way, shape or form ready for a consumer product. Who cares about multi-user personal systems anyway? Who cares about "user desktop preferences"? No one I know.
They can't solve Windows' performance problems, and they can't produce a light, fast version, so they're offering a souped-up reset button? Am I SURE this isn't April 1?
Google's OS is going to boot in 7 seconds. Is anyone at MS even aware of that?
The highly portable tablet will replace the desktop PC and associated keyboard and monitor. But first, human eyes and hands will have to be modified to match the ergonomics of the new platform.
An hysterical over-reaction to a problem that probably won't even exist. Electric cars aren't silent, and people will quickly learn and adapt to the new sounds. Pass a nonsense regulation like this now, and we'll be stuck forever, with streets full of whining cars. Make it loud enough so a person can easily hear one car coming - now multiply that by 100 on a crowded street - guess what, it's a nightmare.
iTunes for Windows has that authentic "Windows" flavor - a catchall for every sales gimmick and product tie-in that the marketing guys could come up with since day 1.
I have a dollar right here that says those iPads aren't locked up in a cabinet. They're either being sold on a black market, or handed out as perks to politicians.
This has nothing to do with search relevance - it's all about Google providing a "great user experience", i.e. self-promotion. The idea is to keep users on the Google page longer, clicking more search links, and hopefully looking at more ads.
Maybe the key weasel-word is "recommended". Is Win7 using new replacement guidelines issued by the Laptop Battery Manufacturers Association? Ok I made that up but you get the point - maybe these new 'recommendations' are just a wee bit conservative?
Register
94 posts • joined Friday 12th June 2009 14:49 GMT
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you mean someone actually managed to download it?
I gave up after numerous attempts that stalled out.
what Phoenix50 said
A year ago I walked into a Microsoft store expecting to fiddle with a Windows 7 phone for 2 minutes and walk out laughing at it. Instead I tried it for 5 minutes and walked out the door owning it. WP7 is a clean, unified, intuitive, uncluttered and very modern looking platform. My wife likes it too, and when her contract is up she's ditching Android and getting WP7.
before you buy an eBook reader...
... check the prices on some of the eBooks you think you want. If they don't choke you, then go ahead. Otherwise you might end up like me - with a Kindle I seldom use, because eBook prices are too high.
what a drag..
... to have to evaluate a product so carefully before buying, trying to find out if it will actually do the things that it so obviously looks like it should be able to do.
I guess we need a new product catgory name, since we can't call these things 'tablets'. They're actually captive devices, more like thin clients for specific applications run by the companies that sell them.
Who has the time or energy to figure this all out in advance? I'd advise Best Buy to get ready for a lot of returns.
remember Gates in front of Congress...
...pontificating about the furious pace of innovation at Microsoft?
a sure sign
At least one association is clear: 100% of 'climate skeptics' also profess hard-core right-wing political views. This isn't a coincidence. I'd also like to see a study of the statistical linkage between denial of climate science and denial of evolution. I suspect that correlation is also extremely high.
This argument isn't about science.
In hindsight, I think MS would have been better off...
... if they'd never even released Vista.
I'm in Minneapolis, near their big store in the Mall of America. It is actually pretty cool, and is exactly opposite the Apple store. The massive array of monitors is impressive. Yes, they do need some new products to draw people in. They need them desperately, and they know that. Windows 8 with 'Metro', on a tablet that doesn't weigh 8 pounds and have a whining fan, would be a good start.
don't worry...
... Microsoft will blow this opportunity, as they always do, because there are 2 things that will never change.
One - they'll never release anything more a shell/skin/UI over creaky, bloated old WIndows.
Two - their wonderful "partners - like HP and Acer - will always add their boatload of cr@pware, demos, "free trials", and a giant tapeworm of fake "security" from Symantec or McAfee.
good points
As a developer, I feel that the great job MS did on .NET and its associated tools showed the real power still in the organization. I guess I actually hope that Win8 turns out to be great. I use a Windows phone and the Metro UI is also a nice piece of work, fully the equal of anything coming out of Apple.
They just tried to milk Windows for far too long.
If they'd started - 10years ago - building a totally new, flyweight OS - realizing that eventually Windows would be sinking of its own weight - they could be in a great position today, with phones and tablets. But I'm sure that internally, no 'competitor' to 'real Windows' could ever get started. Now they're trying desperate tricks to reduce the boot time to something under 90 seconds for a version of Windows that's still a year away... and they have nothing for tablets...and Windows Phone 7 is too little, too late.
excuse me but...
What is a "f***-off web proxy"? And why the sophomoric profanity? 2 separate questions, I guess.
call me obtuse...
... but I don't get this. When you buy shares in a company, you're buying risk. The prospectus spells that out. We can't just sue every time a stock loses money, and it doesn't matter how incompetent the management might turn out to have been - you voluntarily gave them your money to play with.
bellweather
I hear the claims about boot time. Will they be rendered moot by the preinstallation of the standard boatload of cr@pware?
WIll Microsoft finally stop letting their "partners" totally deface their product before it reaches the customer?
In a nutshell: if it comes with Symantec software preinstalled, forget it. The party's over before it begins.
it's a ritual
It seems like every week now a top MS exec is telling the world that it's time to upgrade, it's important, let's move ahead, we need it, you need it, you'll like it. Then I look at the price to upgrade Windows on my PC and it's about $125, like always. And at that price my interest is zero.
Don't a lot of you feel the same way?
maybe
They could try some reasonable upgrade pricing...
AGC
Google searches are already overwhelmed by AGC. ("Auto Generated Crap"). How can a search engine even begin to detect actual 'value' in content?
where were you guys?
The idea that Microsoft used to be a major innovator is just phony nostalgia for a past that never was. Starting with DOS,the big products and ideas were acquired from others. They bought DOS, then they bought their a C compiler. They did a useless 8-bit knockoff of the Apple (Xerox) windowing system, and it went nowhere until a summer intern got that toy running in protected mode and someone at Microsoft got interested. The story continues in a similar vein. Now they're sitting on a mountain of cash managed by business-school grads like Phelps who have no real love for computers, software or even technology.
out of date
As far as I know, this jailbreak technique doesn't work with the latest Kindle firmware (3.2.1).
I have one and I like it...
... but it's missing some important stuff. Skype, for example; and not being able to run Google Maps hurts. No Flash.
A lot of stuff has been vaguely promised in an update later this year. A lot is riding on that. If it's a big disappointment I think a lot of us will jump ship.
I bought it because of the clean, readable, sharp looking UI. If they let 'partners' like Nokia glop it up with their no-value-added cr@p, then likewise we'll assume it's headed down the well-known Windows road and isn't a long-term prospect.
DOA
The price is a complete non-starter.
disappointing...
... to see the Reg correspondent dredging up reasons why we should think this makes sense. It's pure corporate BS and everyone knows it.
another thing...
This article omits the fact that libraries' ePub/Overdrive books are already supported on the Nook and are a major reason for its success against Kindle.
is it just me?
I don't understand this announcement and haven't found any coverage adequately explaining it. My local library already has ePub books, for which I assume they paid the publishers. Will Kindle now accept them? Or is Amazon thinking that libraries will now happily buy the same books again in Kindle format?
no real attribution
An article like this needs some context. Who is the author, really? What does "posted in Physics" mean? We can't find out, because the link to "Physics" is bad.
WOW
WOW. I mean WOW. And it only took them - what - 5 years to figure this out. That's how long I've been telling friends and relatives to buy Apple, so I didn't have to come to their house and spend an hour uninstalling cr@p. Microsoft is indeed listening! But they're listening from somewhere about 5 light-years away.
and no I am not a shill, thank you for asking
I walked into a store to try a W7 phone, expecting to hate it, and ended up buying it. It's a very nice UI: simple, clean, obvious and readable.
But MS has always, for reasons that are hard to fathom, allowed their hardware "partners" to turn the product into a steaming pile of pre-installed crapware that takes 5 minutes to boot and never stops tormenting you with inane popups. So let's see what happens. I'm pessimistic about the long term.
neutralityproposaldrawing a box
It's simple. These companies want to put the internet today, and everything that's on it, in a box, and not devote any new resources or bandwidth to that box. Instead they'll develop new ways to deliver content over digital networks, and provision those services with new investment and equipment, and charge whatever they want for it.
We'll still have the internet - or rather, the internet as of today - but it will stop evolving and growing because it won't get any new bandwidth.
These corporations have one, and only one, motivation and we all know exactly what it is.
I'm 58
and glad I don't work at Google. Sounds like a nasty bunch of kids.
I don't understand this.
Patients, doctors and even technically knowledgeable outsiders couldn't possibly evaluate this code in any useful way. You'd get about 500,000 lines of uncommented C or C++, the writing of which was based on decades of proprietary knowledge which is NOT 'open source' and without which the source code alone will tell you nothing.
It's fine to have the FDA auditing these companies to ensure they're working in ways that makes good engineering sense. But beyond that, we have to simply trust the makers of medical devices and accept our fate.
not gonna happen
There's only 1 thing that might get people still using XP to upgrade: a reasonably priced upgrade. MS is still thinking they can scare those hordes of XP users into coughing up $125, to change the OS on computers that do nothing but run a browser. And it's not going to happen, ever.
I have 2 XP systems here at home, and no intention of 'upgrading' them. I have plenty of other uses for that money.
joy
Pure joy. May the suffering of telemarketers only increase.
2 things
1. Announce a vastly lighter 'personal' version of Windows that boots in 10 seconds and runs built-in browser and email, and some sort of app store. And looks cool. Duh.
2. Bring their upgrade prices for mainstream Windows into reality - say, $25 - so that we all actually buy Win7, and Win8 and stay on board.
As others have pointed out...
... it's really a non-event for many of us, because their upgrade prices are sky-high, and we don't need new computers right now, thanks. I have Vista only because I needed it for development work and my employer provided it. I have no interest in paying $219 for a Win7 Ultimate upgrade, and I probably won't be buying Win8 either.
So after 15 years as a Windows developer, I'm not even interested in a new release. And apparently Microsoft sees this as normal and fine.
gotta be kiddin me
I guess there's no longer any point to keep saying "these guys just don't get it."
Facial recognition? Is this April 1? Who the heck needs, or wants, yet another buggy layer of software preventing them from getting Windows started? I actually worked on facial recognition some years ago. It is in no way, shape or form ready for a consumer product. Who cares about multi-user personal systems anyway? Who cares about "user desktop preferences"? No one I know.
They can't solve Windows' performance problems, and they can't produce a light, fast version, so they're offering a souped-up reset button? Am I SURE this isn't April 1?
Google's OS is going to boot in 7 seconds. Is anyone at MS even aware of that?
this is not news
The print industry has known this for ages: there is no need to go beyond 300 DPI, the eye can't tell the difference.
an infinite time sink
Yes I too found I could do everything I needed to do with Linux instead of Windows. It just took 20 times longer.
minneapolis is a city
Blaine is in a city Minnesota. It's not "in" Minneapolis.
we just have to adapt
The highly portable tablet will replace the desktop PC and associated keyboard and monitor. But first, human eyes and hands will have to be modified to match the ergonomics of the new platform.
sorry but...
... referring to your users as "dumb f#cks" is not something you can simply undo by planing a puff piece in a newspaper.
am I missing something
Huh? All I get is a static graphic, which links to a Google search on "PAC-MAN 30th Anniversary".
hysteria
An hysterical over-reaction to a problem that probably won't even exist. Electric cars aren't silent, and people will quickly learn and adapt to the new sounds. Pass a nonsense regulation like this now, and we'll be stuck forever, with streets full of whining cars. Make it loud enough so a person can easily hear one car coming - now multiply that by 100 on a crowded street - guess what, it's a nightmare.
an app that couldn't say No
So - it isn't just me.
iTunes for Windows has that authentic "Windows" flavor - a catchall for every sales gimmick and product tie-in that the marketing guys could come up with since day 1.
good article
Thanks for deflating this marketing balloon.
corruption, pure and simple
I have a dollar right here that says those iPads aren't locked up in a cabinet. They're either being sold on a black market, or handed out as perks to politicians.
It's iGraft.
irrelevant
This has nothing to do with search relevance - it's all about Google providing a "great user experience", i.e. self-promotion. The idea is to keep users on the Google page longer, clicking more search links, and hopefully looking at more ads.
the price is too high
The price is too high. WAAAAYY too high.
the Register should run a pool...
... where we each get to pick the date when Jobs has to back off on this nonsense and let Apple announce Flash support for all their devices.
face reality
Celebrity or not, if you pay for one airline seat, you get one seat, and not yours plus half of mine.
This guy had better start facing reality and deal with a critical health problem.
recommended
Maybe the key weasel-word is "recommended". Is Win7 using new replacement guidelines issued by the Laptop Battery Manufacturers Association? Ok I made that up but you get the point - maybe these new 'recommendations' are just a wee bit conservative?
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