Tech industry general discussion thread

So Microsoft has RTM'd Windows 8.1 in the span of a year, succeeding in their switch to rapid development schedules, but aren't making it available to anyone, including MSDN subscribers for another two months.

I don't understand. How can it be RTM if it is not available to anyone?

It's available to hardware manufacturers and is the final build that goes out in two months.

caketastydelish said:

I wouldn't call someone that is (practically) the only major defender of Windows 8 on this entire forum an 'Apple fanboy'.

edit: wouldn't.

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He's an iOS dev, those are some pretty deep Apple roots imo and I'm pretty certain he has previously stated that he likes the Windows 8 UI because it's similar to Apple's UI.

heh, sorry if a bit off topic. I shall conclude here by expressing my desire that the Surface RT tablet goes the way of the dodo.

Freedom and Surface Pro ftw.

I'm not really an iOS dev, I used to work at a shop where the specialty was iOS work, but the mobile work I do is either cross-platform html5, cross-platform with Mono/Xamarin or WinPhone exclusive.

I'm certain I've never stated I like the Windows 8 UI because it's similar to Apple's UI.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/08/in-historic-vote-new-zealand-bans-software-patents/

In historic vote, New Zealand bans software patents
Patent claims can't cover computer programs "as such."

...

One Member of Parliament who was deeply involved in the debate, Clare Curran, quoted several heads of software firms complaining about how the patenting process allowed "obvious things" to get patented and that "in general software patents are counter-productive." Curran quoted one developer as saying, "It's near impossible for software to be developed without breaching some of the hundreds of thousands of patents granted around the world for obvious work."

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Cool.

Too bad they haven't invalidated existing software patents.

Nokia -> M$

http://acko.net/blog/why-android-hates-you/

^^ Good article on most of the things that suck about Android's UI. My biggest bugbear is that NOTHING has any hints about what the damn button does. You just have to press it and hope that it's reversible. The camera also completely sucks -- how the hell do you change the basic settings? There's no hints about any of it. It's completely user unfriendly.

Anyway... I'll let that article tell it better than me.

A good thing that James Bond's Q didn't design Android functionality.

I agree with most of that. Strangely much maligned touchwiz does not have some of those issues, such as with network connectivity settings and the status bar issue. I noticed the status bar issue with my Nexus 7 but it is not as bad due to the bigger screen. Also I never had an issue with the touchwiz camera. While reading the article I also found myself thinking all the counter-arguments the author raises at the end.

Interesting blog post arguing that Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia is symptomatic of a company pulling in two opposite, competing directions:

http://stratechery.com/2013/another-nokia-explanation-the-same-conclusion/

The problem for Microsoft in mobile is that Android has completely destroyed the value of a licensed OS; Microsoft’s traditional software model is broken. The only way to make money is to sell hardware to a segment of the market (with lower margin percentages relative to software), or services that sit on top of OSs (with lower prices relative to software).

...

The issue for Microsoft is that a services strategy and a devices strategy are fundamentally opposed to each other. Your services will be forever paying a strategy tax to support your devices, which won’t even be fully differentiated.

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I wonder will that be another one of those doomed mergers because the 2 companies really are not compatible?

The light reading I have done on this makes me think it might be more about inroads in foreign emerging smartphone markets rather than the US and Europe, which are pretty sown up.

Mise said:

Interesting blog post arguing that Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia is symptomatic of a company pulling in two opposite, competing directions:

http://stratechery.com/2013/another-nokia-explanation-the-same-conclusion/

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I don't think either of the scenarios they present are the most likely cases.

ValueAct owns <1% of MS stock, MS could easily have ignored their whining.

Ballmer's explanation for leaving (end of cycle now, instead of mid-cycle when he originally planned to retire) makes perfect sense - Sinofsky's leaving seemed more suspect. (Most plausible explanation I heard for that was that he didn't like where he fit in to MS's re-org - ie. not as CEO).

Nokia wasn't close to going bankrupt, you can look at their financials yourself. I suspect they looked at the longer-term numbers and realized it wasn't going to work.

I'm doubtful Nokia would have gone Android, this would have lost them hundreds of millions in platform payments from MS, and nobody who isn't Samsung is making any money on Android. Google is losing hundreds of millions making Android phones with Motorola.

I don't think Google destroying the value of a licensed OS is particularly relevant - MS is making chump change from WP licenses anyway, they should just make it free and worry about monetization (or simply justify from a ecosystem/services driver standpoint) if the lack of license fees helps OEMs drive adoption.

Services and devices being opposed, and for MS in particular is just silly - Apple and Google are both services and devices companies, the conflicts of interests are pretty minor compared to making 99% of your money from advertising vs. everything else in your company.

Cutlass said:

I wonder will that be another one of those doomed mergers because the 2 companies really are not compatible?

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Well it's not a merger, it's simply an acquisition. I can't imagine it will work out much worse than the billions they've sunk into acquiring search/advertising companies, only to promptly fail them. (Massive, LinkExchange, Fast, aQuantive)

illram said:

The light reading I have done on this makes me think it might be more about inroads in foreign emerging smartphone markets rather than the US and Europe, which are pretty sown up.

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I don't think the acquisition particularly affects market targets. MS is generally more focused on the US than Nokia was. Nokia has been driving low-cost/spec phones since they started the partnership two years ago.

Mise said:

http://acko.net/blog/why-android-hates-you/

^^ Good article on most of the things that suck about Android's UI. My biggest bugbear is that NOTHING has any hints about what the damn button does. You just have to press it and hope that it's reversible. The camera also completely sucks -- how the hell do you change the basic settings? There's no hints about any of it. It's completely user unfriendly.

Anyway... I'll let that article tell it better than me.

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Interesting, but he didn't touch on any of my complaints

I'm on a stock nexus S 4g, running 4.1.1

I have a couple of camera apps. When I swipe left from the unlock screen, I get a dialog that asks which camera app to start. Every damn time I'm required to tell the system whether I only want to do this 'just once' or 'always'. So annoying!

Same thing when clicking urls from a non-browser app. It asks me which browser to use, but before it actually does it I must decide between 'just once' and 'always '. So many unnecessary clicks!

And, I pretty sure that even if I clicked 'always' it would only work for that one specific url.

I hate not being able to default to Swiftkey3 on startup, but I'm getting used to that.

I did see him mention the update issue - I want to tell my apps when to check for updates, since the phone gets super laggy when apps are updating.

OK, end of rant.

The "just once" vs "always" thing is to do with how "intents" are handled. If you do something like "load url" or "open camera", it sends an "intent" to the OS. Programs can register with the OS to handle certain intents. So every camera app registers that it can handle "open camera" intents. Web browsers similarly handle "open url" intents. You get that prompt when there are more than 1 application registered to handle that intent.

The url intents are actually a little more complicated, because the program can actually register to handle specific types of url. So for instance, the YouTube app will handle url intents that contain "www.youtube.com/*" in it; the The Guardian newspaper app will handle intents that contain "www.guardian.com" in it; and so on. If you open a generic url, e.g. to CFC, it will look at all programmes registered to handle that url intent and present you with the dialogue. If you select "always" on the dialogue, it will use that program as the default for all intents of the same type. So if you open a different url, e.g. one for the Samsung website, it will use the default app that you've selected to load generic urls. However, you will still be asked which app to open "www.youtube.com" urls -- because the apps registered to handle that intent are different to the generic url intent. So you'll be able to select the YouTube app as the default for that, without messing up the default for generic urls.

I hope that makes sense. The "intent" system is actually one of my favourite things about Android. I think it's a great way for non-default apps to be allowed to handle certain actions, without screwing up other apps. E.g. when you install programs on Windows, they often steal the default from an existing program on installation. With the Android intent system, you're always in control.

Eh, I don't know of any reasonable programs for Windows that steals common file extensions without at least an opt-out mechanism. (ie. every web browser or media program I'd recommend lets you choose - and not having the choice would be enough for me to recommend against installing a particular program)

The annoyance of repeated popups on both Android and WinPhone lead to me inevitably simply uninstalling all but one app that deals with any particular thing.

If you do "express" installation it usually defaults to stealing them. You can of course deselect them, but in, say, a media program, this is usually prohibitively clicky. It's generally either a choice between having them all, having none, or having only non-utilised ones selected. I would rather there was a "music" intent, a "video" intent, etc, and then have all of that type of media handled by whichever one I pick.

I just installed foobar with the express install and it didn't register any file types. In fact, clicking "Manage file types" in foobar simply opens the supported file types dialog in the Windows control panel.

I can't really think of any reason you'd want to bother with any other music player.

I already have CCCP installed through ninite and don't feel like uninstalling to test, but MPC-HC has buttons to associate with either music, video, or all file types.

Again, I can't think of any reason to use any other video player.

Seems to me the solution is mostly "don't use bad programs".