Posts by Ian Davies 266 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Sep 2007
Thanks for giving me the final push I needed to shitcan the Reg from my RSS feeds.
As someone said above, the articles here used to be quirky, fun, irreverent but *informed*. Now it's just wankers venting their anger and self loathing because they write for a crappy website.
Who, exactly, is claiming that we ever had the iPhone 5 to thank for anything to do with 4G rollout?
The author doesn't say, and the only two places the word 'iPhone' even appears is in the headline, and one sentence in the article which simply repeats the refutation, but against who or what is never made clear.
Strange that.
The size of 1024x768 pixels on a 7.9" screen winds up with UI elements being the same physical size as the original non-retina iPhone.
Therefore, no need for developers to change their UI graphics.
Therefore, no need for users to sandpaper their fingertips.
Therefore, everything SJ said is still true.
You think this product has come into being only since Steve died?
@Steve Knox, Buzzword and any other dingnuts out there.
Too. Much. Stupid.
ClearType has NOTHING to do with rendering PNGs. It has everything to do with rendering (wait for it...) type! Live type that is being rendered by the OS in an application. Not type that's already been flattened into a bitmap image like a PNG. The antialiasing on that text will have been done by whatever graphics software created the image in the first place. Since this is most likely to be Adobe's rendering engine (such as that in Photoshop), I can assure you the antialiasing routines do not match the output of ClearType on Windows or Quartz on OS X - this is a well-known issue that will cause most web designers in the world to start twitching if you mention it to them.
I have no idea what you think an "intelligent raster-based antialiasing routine" is but iOS has OpenGL, have you heard of it? Good luck using any other antialising method on a pixel-based display that isn't raster based. Good grief.
Your whole diversion into the order of RGB elements and subpixel antialiasing is just too La-La to even bother with.
The issue here is really simple, and quite frankly it's the author of the lousy article that's really at fault here. Instead of doing things properly, digital magazine publishers just dumped their publications out as a series of whole-page bitmaps (which incidentally often made each issue an eye-watering download) and now it's come to bite them on the ass because they were too short-sighted in their choice of publishing platform.
A higher-resolution display making lower-resolution images look crappy?
I'm shocked, SHOCKED I tell you.
Not sure what made you choose the 'technical content' icon, since your post is almost wholly incorrect. Worse, you don't actually seem to understand the difference between a bitmap and anti-aliased fonts.
Please tell us how we're supposed to "design PNGs with ClearType in mind"...
@Jeebus
I can't tell if your disingenous proclaimation that there is an argument that Apple should be excused is intentional or not.
Apple *absolutely* deserves to be brought to book when they have done things wrong. The point, which you so conveniently ignore, is not that that Apple should be excused, but that other manufacturers should be judged to the same standard and expected to provide the same kind of information about their operations.
To follow the whole nonsensical "Apple is biggest so deserves a kicking" argument to its logical conclusion, we must conclude that if you're small and not very successful then you can do whatever the fuck you like? Utter bullshit.
As I've said before, when the list of tech companies that are a member of the Free Labor Association has more than one name on it, then you can start comparing.
Proview is claiming that the Taiwanese subsidiary sold something (iPad trademark) which it did not actually own, therefore Apple haven't actually bought it, because it was owned by the Chinese subsidiary.
The problem is that both the Taiwan and Chinese operations are run by the same guy, Yang Rongshan, and he signed the contract authorising the sale. So it's disingenuous in the extreme for him to now claim that the Taiwan affiliate did not have the authority to sell the trademark.
If you could step off the waaaaaaambulance for a few moments and stop the nonsense falling out of the hole in the front of your skull, you would know that Apple *do* have clauses in all their contracts forbidding things like worker abuse and child labour. They *do* carry out surprise inspections. They *have* withdrawn contracts to repeat offenders.
This stuff is all very simple for those of us who, you know, read.
"Not saying that any of the other companies using far-east suppliers are any better..."
"Not saying that my post has any fucking point whatsoever..."
There you go, fixed that for you. You're welcome.
When the list of tech companies allowing independent inspections from the Fair Labor Association has more than one name on it, then maybe you can come back and spout some more of your uninformed crap.
At no point did I say that the conditions at the factories which make Apple products were "good", merely that they were better. They *could* be good for all I know, but I simply don't and I suspect no-one else likely to comment on here really knows either. The author certainly doesn't.
How hard is it to design rounded corners? Well for people like Samsung, easy, once companies like Apple have done all the real work. It's easy for a lazy eye to think everything is obvious after the fact, but if that's the case why weren't any of these other companies producing phones that looked like the iPhone before the iPhone?
It's pretty obvious that Cook isn't satisfied with how things are, but Apple is a convenient whipping post for every sloppy hack with an axe to grind or a point to score who can't be bothered to do any research.
"Those costs obviously don't include software, advertising, design, transport, packaging, but give an indication of the high profit margins that Apple gets off each handset."
That's a whole lot of stupid packed into such a short paragraph. The figures you quote "obviously" don't include some of the largest cost centres (software, design) and yet you're still willing to punt them around as though they mean anything? Anyone still quoting iSupply teardown figures as anything other than a bill of materials, while failing to acknowledge just how much Apple ploughs into the product design and experience, needs to be relieved of their posting privileges.
Is there any danger of some actual, you know, journalism around here? Rather than just helping the ignorance in the echo chamber get a little louder? Did you happen to read the responses from Chinese citizens to the NYT article? Factories that make Apple products are basically *the* place to work, because conditions are so much better than those at factories that produce domestic brand products. Clearly that fact doesn't support the author's agenda, so no surprise it got omitted.
Amateurish.
Facebook themselves are contributing to the problem by still requiring Flash to view in-line videos instead of supporting HTML5. I actually have Flash installed (albeit reigned in by ClickToFlash so I decide when it runs) but Facebook sees this as not having it at all and prompts me to download the Flash plugin whenever I click a video.
"Larry Page famously returned as CEOs after absences and pulled off marvellous recoveries"
Google was in need of/has had a recovery...? Really? To put Larry Page's return in the same terms as Steve Jobs is a nonsense. What's actually changed? A bunch of going-nowhere labs experiments got taken out back and shot, and... that's about it. Is there anything else that has even registered on the radar since Page became CEO again?
How has Google's trajectory changed in any significant way whatsoever?
So "Lasseter joins the many cheated of their due" and yet it's his name on the Oscars (not Jobs's), is readily viewed by most normal, level-headed people as being the leading creative light at Pixar, and has made a staggering amount of money from Pixar's success?
So "Jobs kept the enterprise afloat during tough times" but deserves no credit for there actually being a company still around when success finally called?
The examples you list of where "Jobs's vaunted instincts were dead wrong" are a stretch, at best. Off target? Maybe. "Dead wrong"? Nonsense. The Lisa wasn't a million miles away from where the Mac was headed, and the fanless technology and compact design sensibility developed for the cube helped spawn products like the Mac Mini and flat screen iMac.
No-one has ever claimed Jobs was perfect, least of all the man himself. Only those racing to proclaim their apparent immunity from Jobs's achievements have ever made such a strawman argument.
...when you succumbed to the lazy cliché of writing stuff like "it's clear even Isaacson succumbed to Jobs' infamous charm".
Why? Why is it "clear" that Isaacson "succumbed"? Is it not conceivable for a rational, intelligent person to independently come to view things a certain way anymore? Must everyone with anything remotely favourable to say about Jobs/Apple be merely an obedient zombie doing and saying what they've been "charmed" into?
There is a rapidly emerging test to identify clowns who are guilty of the very close-minded attitude that they accuse Apple users of having.
And Tony Smith just failed that test.
Seriously. What is it with Apple and their maddening habit of releasing things that *actual* people want, instead of the fevered ramblings of the pundit cult who cry shame when Apple mysteriously fails to release the made-up shit that these idiots have been short-stroking for the previous six months in order to satisfy their overblown egos?
@Richard 81: You might want to wipe some of the rabid foam from your chin and actually do a little bit of research. Rob Shoesmith is a 'former binman' because - wait for it - he's now an iOS developer who won a design competition! It's apparently possible for someone to change jobs in this country! Who knew??
http://www.macworld.co.uk/blogs/index.cfm?blogId=8&entryId=746
You're welcome.
Pillock.
Commentard rules state I must ensure I use the words 'cult', 'secrecy', 'Jobisan', 'fanboi' and/or 'mactard' at least once each in this post.
I made several unsuccessful attempts to update last night, each time getting a message telling me "The iPhone cannot be restored because of an internal error". The phone was fine after each attempt. I left it overnight and then tried again this morning; went through without a hitch.
You just need to wait until America has gone to sleep.
@Hud Dunlap "Epic Fail"?? I think you should check your crappy ISP. I was downloading at 1.2M/bits at all times over Virgin cable. Your problem has nothing to do with Apple.
I don't wish to suggest that their words and actions are somehow more hateful or repulsive just because on this occasion they happen to be concerned with Steve Jobs. They're not. Their obscene and vile actions towards members of the military and gay community (to name but two) are just as repellent.
But I hope they really do try and show up at SJ's funeral, and I really hope they finally get to feel some serious consequences for their evil.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
