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Some of your points I can see, but a lot of your criticisms depends on how you use email.

For example: “In my Inbox right now, I have 3 email threads, all with the same one recipient. Ideally, they’d all be merged into one communication thread. It’s messy, having three. I try and keep my inbox as clean as possible, but I can’t because all three threads are important. It’s annoying.” It would drive me insane if I had some sort of auto-merging of email threads from a single contact. Especially if they relate to specific subjects.

Maybe that’s a problem in and of itself, that email is used by so many people for so many different things in so many different ways. Though you could also spin that versatility as a positive.

I’d take email over anything that has anything to do with Facebook, Twitter or any single company. It’s interoperable for the most part, no company dominates it, I don’t have to think whether you’re using Gmail, Yahoo or some tiny domain, unlike with messaging.

Frankly the current performance of every company when it comes to messaging solutions makes me grateful none of them are getting close to creating an email replacement.

1 day ago on Mailbox launches an iPad app, but Gmail poses a greater threat than ever 1 reply

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Any company that can’t keep up with demand has a problem. Granted, if you were to choose, it’s probably the best problem to have, but they really need every potential customer to be able to buy the One. They are in a position where they can’t really afford customers to buy a competing handset only because the One wasn’t available when the contract was up for renewal.

1 day ago on 'Around 5 million' HTC One phones sold since launch

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Also dynamics of sales have an effect. An operator can order a million units in anticipation of high sales, but then if the product doesn’t sell for whatever reason they might limit further orders so strong initial shipping numbers do not necessarily mean high sales over the entire life cycle. Obviously most of the time the correlation is high, but not 100 %.

If a product bombs, depending on how the contracts are written, the operator might request a right to sell it at a lower price and get credit for future purchases or a partial refund for the original order. Or in extreme cases just return the product to the manufacturer and request refunds. This is more or less what happened with the uDraw table which sank THQ.

It looks like this won’t be the case with the One and they are selling them as fast as they can make them so it looks like those units shipped to operators and shop right now get turned instantly into customer sales.

1 day ago on 'Around 5 million' HTC One phones sold since launch

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I passed on my GS2 with CM10 to my flatmate and it is still leaps and bounds ahead of any sub 300$ Android phone. If it wasn’t for the itch to get a new toy and the Nexus 4 being so cheap, I’d be more than happy to keep using that. The hardware on that thing has held up amazingly well.

1 day ago on Android for cheap/medium handsets is a disgrace 1 reply

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I don’t know whether anyone has seen the contract, but I’d be shocked if there isn’t a provision that rights can’t be transferred in case of an acquisition.

Didn’t Netflix get a huge win with tons of cheap content from an obscure company like Starz because the content owners didn’t predict online viewing to be a big thing and Starz hard rights to sub-license their content to websites. Once that old deal expired, none of the content owners allowed for this situation to continue.

Spotify deals can’t be that old so unless the big labels’ legal departments are clueless, this will not happen with music.

Spotify has a bit of brand recognition I guess and an already existing base of subscribers, though it is still tiny compared to Apple numbers. But if Apple buys it, they will still be in the position they are in now when it comes to negotiating licensing deals.

Also I really hope it doesn’t happen because we will end up with Spotify as an iOS exclusive on mobile.

2 days ago on With downloads dwindling, music publishers throw a roadblock into Apple's iRadio plans 2 replies

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Until we see how the new Kinect is implemented in games then this is a glorified tech demo.

Granted, the first Kinect was a failure because

A) it was optional so not everyone had it, if you required Kinect you were limiting your audience, if Kinect was optional in your game then you just ended up with tacked on useless feature

B) the hardware was not good enough to deliver on the promise

Looks like MS delivered with solving those problems on their side, but now we will have to wait and see whether developers implement it in an interesting way. I’m still somewhat sceptic about the whole concept, but at least it looks like they won’t be held back by the hardware. If the new Kinect fails then it will be a failure of creativity rather than engineering.

2 days ago on The all-seeing Kinect: tracking my face, arms, body, and heart on the Xbox One 1 reply 1 recommend

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No, but it might serve you an add to buy more Mountain-Dew flavoured Cheetos once it notices your bag is close to empty.

2 days ago on The all-seeing Kinect: tracking my face, arms, body, and heart on the Xbox One

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Many would argue that it isn’t alive to begin with. The total size of the bitcoin market registers as less than a fart compared to almost any exchangeable currency. Places which take bitcoin as payment are few and far between. Value of bitcoin is fluctuating way too much for people to take it seriously.

2 days ago on Why won’t Bitcoin die?

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Maybe pricing varies a lot between territories, but here the 920 is around 25-30% more expensive than the 8X when purchased online. Obviously most people get phones on contract and there the difference is far smaller with the 920 being 10-20 % more expensive depending on network and contract.

2 days ago on HTC in disarray: staff departures, 'disastrous' First, and production problems cloud company's future 1 reply

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The 360 has only been #1 in sales in USA and UK. Every other territory the PS3 outsold it. But at the end of the day it isn’t important anyway unless one corporation selling more stuff than the other somehow validates our lives.

Reaction will differ, according to who you will ask. If I buy another console it’s because of great games. Maybe times have changed and I just need to accept it, but I find it depressing that the first unveil of a new console is focused so much on fluff. Right now both Sony and MS have done a poor job making this exciting.

I’d really just prefer them not to show anything until E3. There are things that look impressive. Especially the speed and seamlessness of the UI. If I can really say Xbox On, Xbox Play game and be ready to play in a few seconds, then that’s pretty amazing. It can take me three minutes from the moment I switch a console on, navigate through the UI, launching screens, downloading data, loading saves etc. etc. to actually get into a game of FIFA. If they can somehow cut it down, or at least provide an easy distraction while you have to wait, then that’s already a huge win.

Their focus on the new Kinect is also disappointing, but that is mainly because the first Kinect has been so dreadful. Everything that had anything to do with the first Kinect has been crap. Their effort to make the new Kinect a centrepiece of the console makes me shudder. Maybe they will iterate on it, prove the sceptics wrong, make the new Kinect amazing and release a ton of new games that take advantage of it.
But having failed once, you can’t really criticize people for being sceptic until proven otherwise.

2 days ago on Why are the Verge writers upset by the One? 1 recommend

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They can only comment on what was unveiled so far. For a gaming console reveal it was very poor. Not enough games, nothing impressive was shown. Frankly, it was even worse than Sony who haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory. The current implementation of TV on Xbox One has been destroyed by Nilay Patel. MS might be just on a first step to “saving” TV, but clearly they achieved very little progress so far. So their main point during the reveal is more “smoke and mirrors” than an improvement.

At the end of the day it would have been better if both companies had just waited for E3 or even later when they are closer to release and have more interesting things to show. I’d like for the PS4 and X1 to both be amazing, but why they insist on holding events so long before release with so little info is beyond me since both reveals just ended up underwhelming.

MS was touting a number of new games, new franchises, exclusives and so on, but until we actually get to see them, it’s kind of hard to get excited about them.

Also, it’s the ugliest console released in the disc media era. If the PS4 is anything as ugly as the Xbox One, then they dodge a bullet by not showing it. At least they’ll have some more time without having to listen to criticism. Not that it matters. It can look like a toaster, but if the games are great, I’ll still buy it. Just maybe hide it in a cabinet or something.

2 days ago on Why are the Verge writers upset by the One? 1 reply

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I’ve seen quite a few 8S in Poland, especially since one of the carriers is pushing it quite heavily on a good value plan. Poland is one of 8 or so countries where WP is in second place ahead of iOS. Problem is the size and affluence of the markets where WP is doing well is just not big enough. Also even if HTC sells a few 8S, the difference in price between the 8S, 8X and the One is like 1:2:4 and I’ve never seen anyone use a high-end HTC phone here.

2 days ago on HTC in disarray: staff departures, 'disastrous' First, and production problems cloud company's future 1 recommend

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In Poland it’s Samsung, Samsung, Samsung when it comes to ads. I only see them advertise the GS3 and now the GS4. And the Notes a little as well.

Then the ads are a bit of
- Sony when they released the Xperia T “James Bond phone” and more recently with the Xperia Z
- Apple, for the iPad, Ipad mini and the iPhone 5

No LG, no HTC, no Motorola or ZTE, Huawei or Nokia

All the other ads for phones are really operator or retailer ads. The only time I have seen WP ads or handsets from other manufacturers is when they are pushed by the operator.

But yeah, altogether I’d say Samsung at least feels like it is spending more on advertising here than all the competitors combined.

3 days ago on Samsung's "record" sales vs Apple's "disappointing" sale. 1 reply