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lol, holy shit. Well duh if you pick the best features of every Windows ultrabook, then yeah, the Air is a “compromise.” But if you compare the Air to any single Windows ultrabook, then no, the Air is not a “compromise”; it provides by far the best overall ultrabook experience. And often the cheapest, too.

7 days ago on Do you buy Apple products because they are new and cool? 1 reply 2 recommends

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Was your comment an intentional reference to this? Heheh. Because that’s what I immediately thought when I saw your username and avatar.

7 days ago on Who owns a 'Luigi's Mansion' walkthrough video, the player or Nintendo?

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I’m neither an Android nor iOS developer, but I think Android automatically dismisses notifications from an app when you open that app. iOS does not. This is the main difference. When most iOS or Android apps send a notification, they do nothing to clean it up afterwards (?). On Android, this is not a problem, because it’s automatically taken care of when you open the app. On iOS, this could be a problem if the app doesn’t have something in place specifically to take care of notifications.

It’s not really attention to detail on Google’s part; it’s just a difference in implementation strategies. One could argue that iOS’s implementation is more powerful, since you might not want to dismiss ALL notifications when opening an app. Think emails. On Android, if you have “5 unread emails” and you open the email app, all those notifications disappear (I think?), even if you only read one or even none. On iOS, the unread messages remain in Notification Center until you read them.

Of course, this also causes problems when iOS developers don’t take care of notifications properly. The OP is right that this IS a problem (right now I have really old Tweetbot and Instagram notifications in my Notification Center still, even though I’ve already checked those a while ago).

(Of course, I might be totally off-base here, because again, I’m neither an iOS nor Android developer.)

7 days ago on Questions about iOS Notifications?

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Apple wouldn’t give an iOS 7 release date even if they announce and preview iOS 7. They’ve never announced the release date of an iOS version during the preview (I don’t think?) because it’s usually released days before the next iPhone. And that would basically give away the release date of the next iPhone.

Also, what’s this “social hub” you’re talking about? Are you thinking of something similar to Windows Phone? I can tell you why I prefer Apple not do something like this, having briefly used Windows Phone. The services that must be integrated into a “social hub” (e.g. Facebook, Google Talk, Skype) may be updated down the line, and if the social hub is maintained by Apple (rather than Facebook, Google, or Microsoft), then the social hub will lose out on new features.

It’s the same reason why it was better in the long run to remove Google Maps and YouTube from system apps in iOS. Google introduced turn-by-turn navigation to its Android Maps app a long time ago, but not on iOS, because the iOS app wasn’t actually maintained by Google. Once Apple removed Google integration, Google was then able to release its own Maps and YouTube apps for iOS, and they’re actually up-to-date and better; Maps now has turn-by-turn navigation, and YouTube now plays Vevo videos.

And it’s the same reason why Windows Phone’s social hub kinda sucks.

7 days ago on How are your "realistic" expectations for WWDC ?

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Once again, you’re working under the assumption that your priorities in tech (i.e. specs and features) are the “correct” priorities, while most people’s priorities (i.e. social reasons) are the “wrong” priorities.

If you ask an average person what they want out of their phones, they would probably tell you they want to be able to communicate with their friends. That’s the main reason. If all of their friends have iPhones, the iPhone does the best job at that. You’re right that they don’t care about clock cycles and megapixels and PPI, but you say that condescendingly, as if those were the only valid reasons to buy a piece of technology.

Also, you are extremely sexist.

7 days ago on Do you buy Apple products because they are new and cool? 1 reply 2 recommends

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Do you live/work in a very densely populated area? Congestion absolutely kills your battery.

8 days ago on How bad is the iPhone 5 battery?

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Google brought this upon themselves.

What exactly did Google bring upon itself?

[Google] can suffer the consequences of being jackholes.

What exactly might these “consequences” be?

If Google would just swallow their pride and let Microsoft support them, these things wouldn’t ever happen.

What are “these things”?!

I don’t understand your post. You write as if Google lost something here…

8 days ago on Google demands Microsoft remove YouTube Windows Phone app, cites lack of ads 1 reply 1 recommend

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On a related note, this is why BlackBerries refuse to go away in some parts of the world. You think people buy BlackBerries to show off?

8 days ago on Do you buy Apple products because they are new and cool?

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You’re right that part of the reason a lot of people buy Apple products is “because their best friend got one.” But you’re being disingenuous (or projecting your insecurity) if you claim that those people buy Apple products “to impress” people around them.

Firstly, the most obvious flaw in your argument: if everyone has an Apple product, having one yourself is unimpressive. The white iPhone 4S is by far the most popular phone on my campus. The 13" MacBook Pro is by far the most popular laptop on my campus. Both of these devices are decidedly “unimpressive,” yet people still buy them in droves.

Rather, most people have different priorities than you do when it comes to smartphone/computer choice. The social aspect plays a much greater role. In fact, the social aspect plays the greatest role for a lot of people, especially when it comes to smartphones. And I’m not just talking iMessage and FaceTime, but Vine and Tinder and Snapchat (back when it was iOS-only). From my own experience, my Galaxy Nexus lacked group MMS capabilities, so when my iPhone-carrying friends started group texts, I could never participate.

For a lot of people, their social lives are inextricably tied to their smartphones. If you have the wrong smartphone, sadly enough, you’re going to miss out.

Conversely, if your friends all have Android phones, you might miss out by having an iPhone. But this is usually not the case (unless all of your friends are engineers), and even if it is, having an iPhone is less of a handicap anyway, because there’s very little you can get on Android that you can’t also get on iOS.

(This is not to say there aren’t plenty of other reasons to get an iPhone or an Android phone. But please, the whole idea that people buy Apple products to show off is so dated and ridiculous.)

8 days ago on Do you buy Apple products because they are new and cool? 2 replies 6 recommends

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Except the Chromebook purports to be only a web browser, while the Kirabook purports to be a full-featured desktop OS in extremely high resolution. The Chromebook succeeds at providing a good web browsing experience, while the Kirabook fails at providing a good high resolution desktop OS experience.

Besides, I don’t even believe the Kirabook is as great a web browsing device as the Chromebook. IE is the only browser with HiDPI support on Windows; Chrome still doesn’t. Chrome’s Mac beta version included Retina support like, what, a week after the rMBP was announced? But today, even the most bleeding edge Windows version of Chrome doesn’t support HiDPI.

So, basically, if you don’t want your web browser to look like shit, you have to use IE on the Kirabook. Which is a dealbreaker for me, personally, and I’m guessing for a lot of people, too.

And, actually, IE doesn’t even support HiDPI properly. It won’t render pages at 200% by default (so everything is tiny), the text in the toolbars don’t fit correctly (see the tab bar), and the unusual resolution even interferes with webpage rendering (see The Verge’s navigation bar).

(view full res)

I included Origin in there as well, plus the properly-sized (albeit pixellated) Apple Software Update window for scale.

This is not usable. Windows 8 (at least desktop mode) is literally unusable on HiDPI displays.

The Chromebook is at least usable. In my book, that’s why the Chromebook deservedly outscores the Kirabook; it does what it’s trying to do better than the Kirabook.

9 days ago on Toshiba Kirabook review: finally, a flagship Windows 8 laptop 1 recommend

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The size of the keyboard isn’t the issue. It’s the size of the textbox. There is absolutely no reason it has to be that large. The iPhone’s textbox expands as you type.

Also, a lot of people use SMS like IM. This means you want to be able to both read and write messages at the same time.

Judging from the One screenshot I posted, you can see about 2.5 one-line texts at a time with the keyboard open. I can see about 5.5 one-line texts with the keyboard open on my iPhone 5. And I don’t see any extra utility on the One’s SMS interface that I don’t get on my iPhone; they offer the same things. With everything else equal, this is a case of objectively worse UI real estate usage.

9 days ago on My thoughts on larger screens 1 reply 2 recommends

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(Also, this isn’t really relevant, but the iPhone screenshot with the larger font isn’t a mockup; you can increase the font size via Accessibility settings on the iPhone.)

10 days ago on My thoughts on larger screens

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Oh my god yes. HTC is especially bad at properly using screen real estate. I mean, look at this:

This is a screenshot from the HTC One. You’re telling me a 1080p display can only display about two texts at once?

Honestly, I’m not even exaggerating, but the horrible SMS interfaces on Android phones alone is enough to keep me on iOS. Do Android users not text? How is this acceptable?

10 days ago on My thoughts on larger screens 1 reply 1 recommend

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I still have no idea what you mean by “reality.” Saying that something is just “reality” is the same thing as saying “it just is.”

I can help you. The reason criminals are overwhelmingly men is similar to the reason women are overwhelmingly caretakers: because of socially constructed gender roles. Men are taught they must be aggressive, and that they must be the providers for their families, both of which can perhaps lead men to commit more crimes than women. Women are taught to be demure and nurturing, which perhaps makes them “better” or more suitable caretakers of children.

That doesn’t mean that either men or women are naturally/biologically predisposed to either personality type. And these gender roles have greater implications by creating gender bias.

What if a women wants to build a tech startup rather than raise a child? She will face gender bias; VCs, even if subconsciously, will question her ability to lead and succeed. They might not raise the same objections if she were a man; since men are supposed to be the breadwinners for their families, they might see men as more driven to succeed professionally. A man’s self-worth and his career are (perceived as) inextricably linked. But what does a woman have to lose if she doesn’t succeed? What if she suddenly decides to do the more “natural” thing and have children midway through her career?

This is why what you’re saying is problematic. It’s institutional sexism. It’s not overt sexism, but it affects women (and men!) pretty greatly.

10 days ago on What can Python and the New York Times tell us about gender?

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Please stop saying pseudoscientific things to sound smart. It’s embarrassing.

And it’s probably futile to argue with a misogynist, but I’ll just say one thing: correlation does not imply causation. Just because a group (e.g. women) share common biology and behavior, it doesn’t mean that their biology is the cause for their behavior.

10 days ago on What can Python and the New York Times tell us about gender?

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I’ve used Windows 8 on my rMBP. It’s next to unusable on such high DPI displays. Even most system dialogs aren’t optimized for high resolution, and a lot of apps don’t even get blown up (e.g. Origin), so they appear at like a fourth of the size of the rest of the UI.

Even before most Mac apps got Retina support (which happened very quickly, btw), apps were at least blown up to the correct size, and text / standard UI elements were rendered in high resolution. Only custom assets were pixellated.

I feel like HiDPI Windows 8 laptops would be painful to use, based on my (admittedly limited) experience with Windows 8 on my HiDPI Mac. This Kirabook is a classic case of great hardware getting fucked by bad software.

The Chromebook, on the other hand, is optimized for its resolution. I haven’t personally used one, but I’m guessing the UI is usable and readable.

I think that alone is enough to justify the higher grade. The Chromebook fulfills its goals, at least a lot better than the Kirabook does. The Chromebook is at least an attempt at some sort of coherent user experience; the Kirabook is throwing some nice hardware with no fucks given about user experience.

And I think that’s why you think you scored the Chromebook too high. Maybe you can’t put your finger on why you did, because the reason is subtle: user experience.

10 days ago on Toshiba Kirabook review: finally, a flagship Windows 8 laptop 1 reply 1 recommend

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Dedicated graphics aren’t important anymore, unless you’re an avid gamer.

I have a 15" rMBP (Ivy Bridge) and I prefer to keep my discrete graphic card off at all times (using gfxCardStatus), because it saves power and runs cooler. General performance is fine; there’s no noticeable sluggishness. I mean, things like Mission Control (which I don’t use anyway) and switching spaces aren’t 60 FPS smooth, but it’s still more than accpetable. Haswell will definitely improve this, though.

And modern integrated graphic cards are more than enough to handle Photoshop work (though discrete graphics might be more appropriate for 3D work).

12 days ago on How necessary are dedicated graphics? 1 reply