His eyes were stuck on his smartphone. DUH!

*quality *doublepromote

And if you haven't seen it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaaC57tcci0


Coincidentally, this is one of the sites i used to regular prior to social media and widespread smartphone use. I think taht's why I keep it on my regular loaded tabs. Can't find all of my comments because of siftpocalypse or siftmageddon or whatever we called it when the servers went poof~! Ive lost a hard drive or two in my day. Rough stuff.

Speaking of which, we should make an effort to revive this site and get some more sifters sifting. We do have something unique here, something I miss from record stores and Blockbuster, actual human curators of content.


actual human curators of content
^ we don't have algorythms, we have voting
We don't have bots, we have people

I, for one, am sick of over-monetized-bullshit that all sounds the same constantly being shoved in my face, so i end up here. Maybe some of us are still affected by the crazy propaganda bug, +cough cough+ but the debates look closer to an actual townhall than one infected with too much nonsense for its own good.

Perhaps this would be better in a sift talk post. :-p

Eventually. My brother was online before there was an internet, trading programs for his Apple 2 over the phone lines, and the web existed for years before the possibility of profit, and much longer before any profit was realised. The nerds (myself included) drove the expansion for quite a while, but I don't deny commerce has made it ubiquitous and fast. Companies want you to enjoy the experience of buying from them so you come back, so they have an incentive to continue funding advancements that benefit the market, making more potential customers.
There are many incentives not based on profit too, as you mentioned. I don't think it's an either/or equation.

Didn't iPhones basically create the smartphone market?

Your video, "Why Are There So Few Smartphones In Popular Movies?", has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

hmmm, I love ya, but... not the most interesting Nerdwriter ever...

why are there so few smartphones in popular movies: because we secretly don't like them, and popular movies are made to show us what we like. <Insert Werner Herzog>

“The most important thing that happens when a new iPhone comes out is not the release of the phone, but the disassembly of it.”

Demonstrably false. The market has proven that almost no one cares about this.

When the iPhone first came out, people derided it’s lack of removable battery. Good luck finding a high end smartphone with a removable battery these days. Then there was components soldered onto the board, then the removal of the headphone socket, all of which Samsung, etc have copied*.

Outside of a vocal minority, no one cares about phone repairability. If you do, congrats, you’re part of that minority, and that’s fine. Personally, I think it’s a reasonable thing, but clearly, most people prefer thinner, lighter, water resistant phones over fixable phones.

* note: yes, Apple have copied features of droid phones too. No, it’s not relevant to this discussion.

TL;DW! I jest, I jest! I remember I used to read metric (yes, METRIC) tons of books during my formative years. Novels, fiction, non-fiction, comics... I read Times & Maclean's (Canadian equivalent of Times) magazines front-to-back... like over 90% of all articles every week. But high-speed internet & smartphone happened then I don't read prints very much anymore. Still read/watch news too much though, but it's now more depressing than educational with the stuff I read online. The journalistic standard is way down.
Much harder to find really enlightening long-form reporting these days.

I don't agree that this statement is relevant to Apple.

Jobs is arguing that when you have a monopoly, your product people take a back seat to your sales/marketing guys. Fair enough, but that assumes Apple have a monopoly.
Far from it, they have:
- 13% of the smartphone market
- 24% of the tablet market (and that market is in decline)
- and a whopping 4% of the desktop market

How on any planet is that even close to a monopoly?

Don't get me wrong, I think Apple are in a bit of a creative slump at the moment. They desperately need new design blood.

To be fair:

Microsoft made a better OS for integrated work computers than Apple.

Apple made a better phone device than Microsoft.

Android based smartphone manufacturers made better phone devices than both Microsoft and Apple.

All of the above have been massive technology innovators who have earned their market shares.

Choosing one over the other for a specific purpose is sometimes a practical choice, sometimes a lifestyle choice and sometimes just a matter of familiarity. If one choice seems cooler than the others to you, then that's a reflection of your criteria when making a choice and doesn't reflect on anyone else's choices.

Ah, it looked like a smartphone on a power dock.

Everyone in this video is doing something wrong. Rather than picking a side to blame, why don't we judge the situation neutrally. I definitely blame the drivers because they're driving like assholes during poor weather conditions -- but that doesn't make Comcast employees who apathetically enforce safety protocols or a vigilante transit authority with a smartphone right either. Fails all around.

*doublepromote

Fucking finally. I am so tired of obnoxious wankers whinging about smart phones disconnecting us from each other.

Know what I did on public transport prior to having a smartphone? I read a book and listened to my Walkman (yes, I'm that old).

I didn't talk to strangers on a bus, because most people are fucking boring. And they undoubtedly think I'm boring too.

We were previously forced to talk to neighbours, colleagues, etc because they were the only people we came in contact with, but these days instead of communicating with people who share our physical space, we communicate with people who share our interests.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/bail-set-pokemon-shootout-suspect-las-vegas-40938442

From the article:
"Police say Campos demanded items before dawn Monday from several people playing the popular smartphone game that sends players to physical locations to "catch" virtual Pokemon characters.

"One game player who police say had a concealed weapon permit drew his own gun and exchanged fire with Campos. Both were wounded with what police said were not life-threatening injuries."

I would have thought there was a fairly simple answer as to why 911 doesn't get location data from smartphones... privacy.

The reason uber, dominos, etc have access to your location is because they have an app on your smartphone that has been explicitly granted access to your location by you. 911 is just a simple phone call and so it can't read the location data.

To do so reliably across cell phones would require development of some kind of emergency location standard that all manufacturers could implement. Technically, it's not that difficult, but getting everyone to agree on a standard?

Not that easy