Can you get any more?

Sadly not Steve, I was lucky enough to be on holiday in Florida when the announcement was made, I queued up at Best Buy on the Orange Blossom trail and in I went, $99 to the lovely hispanic lady, and one HP touchpad. I am actually going to mourn WebOS a little, because it actually looks to be the best tablet OS I have seen or used. There's turmoil at HP a the moment, and as for the Touchpad, if they had marketed it at $100 below the iPad2 it would have sold. It really is an utterly brilliant tablet OS, and whenever I use the mrs's iPad2, it feels antiquated and clunky compared to WebOS's card's.

Ah well, was worth an ask!

And yes, well aware of current HP turmoil, as to what they'll do with their desktop/laptop operations in particular. Nothing like working in a fairly large organisation with an HP-only deal really :S

I don't get this point :-) it just confirms the sheepiness, are you going to borrow the dude's phone?

Well no, probably not, but I think it helps with the whole lock-in upgrade path thing:

You buy an iPhone 2G with x features and y OS

It gets upgraded to y+1 OS, which brings new software features

You then upgrade to an iPhone 3G which brings faster data, better camera. It runs the same OS so you already know how to use it.

Then a new OS comes out and you get a few more new features for free, but it's all quite similar

Then you get an iPhone 3GS which comes with the same version of the OS, so it's already obvious

Then new software

Then iPhone 4

etc

If you look at the iOS on an iPhone 4 next to the shipping firmware on the original iPhone I bet it's fairly different. And yet no one ever has trouble using the new versions because it's all very iterative. Whereas jumping from an HTC to a Samsung to a Motorola Android phone is pretty jarring in comparison, everything's manufacturer-customised etc. There are advantages both ways, and personally I'm an Android man due to being a bit of a geek, but I can see how the Apple approach works with people who just want to get on with their day and have a device which works and which they can use without thinking.

In other news, I wanted a Touchpad too. They sold out over here within minutes at pretty much every retailer and are now going for £200 or so on eBay. Lucky find

Indeed. Didn't particularly like his company or his products, but no one deserves to go at just 56.

+1

Well no, probably not, but I think it helps with the whole lock-in upgrade path thing:

You buy an iPhone 2G with x features and y OS

It gets upgraded to y+1 OS, which brings new software features

You then upgrade to an iPhone 3G which brings faster data, better camera. It runs the same OS so you already know how to use it.

Then a new OS comes out and you get a few more new features for free, but it's all quite similar

Then you get an iPhone 3GS which comes with the same version of the OS, so it's already obvious

Then new software

Then iPhone 4

etc

If you look at the iOS on an iPhone 4 next to the shipping firmware on the original iPhone I bet it's fairly different. And yet no one ever has trouble using the new versions because it's all very iterative. Whereas jumping from an HTC to a Samsung to a Motorola Android phone is pretty jarring in comparison, everything's manufacturer-customised etc. There are advantages both ways, and personally I'm an Android man due to being a bit of a geek, but I can see how the Apple approach works with people who just want to get on with their day and have a device which works and which they can use without thinking.

In other news, I wanted a Touchpad too. They sold out over here within minutes at pretty much every retailer and are now going for £200 or so on eBay. Lucky find

This.. but the fact up until 4S + IOS5 its always lagged behind other smartphones in major features..

My rekoning is now on they will switch to 18 month release cycles, being that the "common" contract is pushing 2 years now.

My rekoning is now on they will switch to 18 month release cycles, being that the "common" contract is pushing 2 years now.

The contact cycles thing was Apples creation to milk the networks and users by tying them in. Remember Apple gets a kick back per month out of your network in the same fashion as the Blackberry taxtion system.

Given the popularity of iphones, networks simply see this as people are accepting of 2yr contracts now. Three only offer 2 year deals now.

!8 months is as long as I'm comfortable with.

I'll be getting the iPhone 4S as a replacement for my iPhone 4, I've invested too much pocket money on apps and iTunes produce to change to the darkside now. There's no point banging on about specs of this and that. The hardware only works as well as the software installed on the device. I'm sure Android is a very good OS which is why they're selling millions of phones, but the android devices I've used have been clunky and jerky and over complicated.

I'll stick with the goodness of iOS and its magic soporific sleekness.

.......or maybe not. I've just seen the tariffs being offered by Voda, T-Mob and Orange. Quite simply, they're asking too much. Way too much. To replace my 32GB iPhone 4 and get a 32GB iPhone 4S with a half decent contract, I'm expected to fork out £36 per month for 2 years, and also pay between £240 and £260 for the handset.

Unless O2 come up with something completely different, it may well end in divorce.

What's this Google Nexus Prime all about then? I hear you get a free Ice Cream Samich with it. That sounds nice.

.......or maybe not. I've just seen the tariffs being offered by Voda, T-Mob and Orange. Quite simply, they're asking too much. Way too much. To replace my 32GB iPhone 4 and get a 32GB iPhone 4S with a half decent contract, I'm expected to fork out £36 per month for 2 years, and also pay between £240 and £260 for the handset.

Unless O2 come up with something completely different, it may well end in divorce.

ouch.

What's this Google Nexus Prime all about then? I hear you get a free Ice Cream Samich with it. That sounds nice.

It's just Android, no manufacturer specific stuff like HTC Sense or Samsung's Android UI that I've forgotten the name of, no extra launchers or bundled apps that the mobile networks include as a revenue stream, etc. If you buy a Nexus One, Nexus S or Nexus Prime then you get Android exactly as Google released it.

It's just Android, no manufacturer specific stuff like HTC Sense or Samsung's Android UI that I've forgotten the name of, no extra launchers or bundled apps that the mobile networks include as a revenue stream, etc. If you buy a Nexus One, Nexus S or Nexus Prime then you get Android exactly as Google released it.

Or on a more positive note, it's the latest pure Android phone running the latest version of the OS, with what appears to be cutting edge hardware and design. Being a pure Android OS you could also say that it is a perfect blank canvas from which the end user can customise the experience to their own needs and tastes.

Alternatively yould say it's just Android, but then the 4s is just iOS, and even with 5 the ghost of big Steve will haunt you and force you to jailbreak it invalidating your warranty, to apply any form of real user level customisation.

I love the price apple applies to memory, the 16GB 4s is priced at what in this day and age is a reasonable £499, but dare yee wish to have more storage, 64GB for example, it's £200 more, personally I prefer a big SD card for £15 to increase my storage

I meant that in a positive way, as in it's pure Android. I just picked a not-so-good word which can have more than one meaning

I meant that in a positive way, as in it's pure Android. I just picked a not-so-good word which can have more than one meaning

:thumbup:

It's just Android, no manufacturer specific stuff like HTC Sense or Samsung's Android UI that I've forgotten the name of, no extra launchers or bundled apps that the mobile networks include as a revenue stream, etc. If you buy a Nexus One, Nexus S or Nexus Prime then you get Android exactly as Google released it.

and let me guess; this is going to be the Android handset that kills the iPhone, just like the other forfty gazillion Android based iPhone killing handsets that came before it... :p that's why I didn't buy an original Nexus - there was (is) always another, better Android handset just around the corner - it's worse than looking at video cards or CPUs :S

There have been many Android iPhone killers in terms of specification and functionality.

Its the app store and Apple brand / marketing thats yet to be killed

I played with a WM mango phone yesterday and that could be the dark horse of the bunch. very slick and responsive.

I ahve to admit to being a little disappointed that the long rumoured entry level iphone is yet to materialise. Not necessarily to buy one but to drive innovation in other mfrs at the level.

In the meantime I hope my rather decrepit Android offering keeps going for a while.

Apple innovation is shinyness rather than hardware or new features.

Got the Emporer's new phone yesterday, and I'm very impressed. Managed to bag a 32Gb for £40 on a 2 year £37pm contract through a special deal at work. Web pages load like lightning compared to the 4. I have about 20gb of content on the phone and it doesn't miss a beat whereas the 4 could be laggy when nearly full.

Siri is a gimmick and doesn't understand my Geordie accent. Very slick piece of kit and what the 4 should have been.

Sent via my index finger.