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I must have partial brain damage – I could’ve swore something said $299 in this review…at any rate I was grossly mistaken about that.

The price is a big deal. I think it’s a nice product but I figured it was an absolute miracle at a netbook price (which would be the case), just not true.

19 days ago on Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11 review: a netbook by another name 1 reply 2 recommends

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I’m not saying that Surface isn’t a great RT computer because it is.

I’m saying that Surface’s goal as a tablet is hampered by the need to take on an extra 0.6lbs just to do “real work” in the desktop UI in most customers’ eyes (my theory, may not be true).

For most a netbook (or this Yoga) doesn’t require the consumer to choose what kind of experience he wants at a particular moment (tablet or computer). It is just always a notebook – and conveniently, Office RT is more suited to that particular mode of operation at all times. I think the concept is more familiar to many casual Windows consumers (it’s like a netbook but way better!) rather than a risk (it’s like an iPad, but…different?)

19 days ago on Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11 review: a netbook by another name 1 reply

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This could be a truly well-positioned product.

Where the Surface fails in chiefly shoehorning an excellent tablet with legacy Windows desktop UI, the Yoga 11 is a purpose-built notebook that doesn’t require a separate keyboard that conflicts with a low-weight tablet.

It’s all the benefits netbooks were supposed to bring – tiny, cheap – with all the benefits of an iPad-style OS – great battery life, can’t load it with crapware – and all the benefits of Microsoft Office, which for a lot of students and family is really the only piece of professional software they need in an entry level $300 computer.

I could see this being a serviceable product idea. RT and Office RT may ultimately create the better malware-proof all-day battery life school/student netbook, where the original Windows netbooks failed.

19 days ago on Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11 review: a netbook by another name 2 replies

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The corollary to this is that the 13.7 “GB” max capacity that you see reported in iTunes is actually Gibibytes, even though the rest of the OS X system reports gigabytes for all hard drives.

iTunes is inconsistent from the rest of OSX for its data storage units.

21 days ago on 16GB Galaxy S4 Reportedly Only Has 8.8GB Space Available

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No, the original capacity of an iPhone is 16 Gigabytes.

Hence 16*(1000^3) = 16,000,000,000 bytes. ÷ 1024 ÷ 1024 ÷ 1024 = 14.9 GiB.

The internal iOS partition used for restores is often estimated at 1.1 GiB.

Hence, 14.9 – 1.1 = gets you ~13.8 (give or take) actual usable space in GiB.

21 days ago on 16GB Galaxy S4 Reportedly Only Has 8.8GB Space Available

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The best storage is the kind that came with the phone.

Android and Windows Phone both do not officially have full support for storing media and apps on MicroSD. It’s something that idiot OEMs keep customizing phones with.

Because OEMs are really great at OS filesystem management and driver support. :-\

21 days ago on 16GB Galaxy S4 Reportedly Only Has 8.8GB Space Available 2 recommends

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Calculator: Soulver

21 days ago on Best Weather, Calculator and Unit Conversion App 1 reply 2 recommends

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Yeah, the thing is…I don’t dislike the base iOS experience.

What bothers me on a daily basis with the iPhone:

- lousy inter-app communication
- crappy podcast sync between cloud & iTunes
- flaws in Siri voice commands
- carrier-locked phone

What doesn’t bother me

- lack of toggles/widgets
- iOS appearance

I don’t really have any problems that I’m looking to jailbreak to solve – I don’t think jailbreaking can fix the problems I have with iOS, since they’re more foundational.

I’m just wondering if there’s any genuinely impressively innovation, or if it’s just people nitpicking about iOS defaults or a different way of arranging app icons.

22 days ago on To all the jailbreakers 1 reply 1 recommend

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It’s a purely GPU-driven test, no other pesky hardware is a part of it.

Which means it’s great for comparing GPUs, not for comparing the actual native on-display frame-rates of course. It’s more academic, in that “wow Apple can make a good GPU”.

22 days ago on iPhone 5 vs Galaxy S4

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The hassle where I do it. I’ve got tons of jailbroken iPods but this is my primary phone, and I usually worship at the altar of immediate software updates.

Auxo sounds like genuinely cool UI, but in the end it doesn’t change how the phone behaves. I’m not interested in the other UI tweaks (Accelerate/SwipeSelect) or the placebo app-killer. Zephyr’s gestures don’t appeal to me, I went through my Palm Pre+ phase already (even wrote a few tweaks for it – loved that thing, but ultimately a big waste of time).

What else can I do with a jailbroken phone?

(I’d love to carrier-unlock this Verizon 4S, but I checked everywhere I could find and that’s not actually possible on the VZW4S as far as I know even with a jailbreak.)

22 days ago on To all the jailbreakers 1 reply

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Off-screen is useful in that it’s independent of pixel density – the iPad 3 actually has much faster graphics performance than the iPad 2 – but it’s all given to render the same iPad 2-detailed image at a much higher resolution.

Offscreen isn’t valid for real-world usage (in which case the iPhone 5 and the GS3 are about even), but it’s a benchmark metal-theory-level comparison: which silicon is purely the fastest, no other parts considered.

22 days ago on iPhone 5 vs Galaxy S4 1 reply 1 recommend

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Offscreen scores, see above.

22 days ago on iPhone 5 vs Galaxy S4 1 reply 3 recommends

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The offscreen 1080p scores (normalized for resolution) also match the GS4 in several benchmarks (the only one I remember where the GS4 pulled ahead was the more rigorous Egypt HD).

On the other hand if Samsung’s GPU is less performant at the resolution they chose, that should be a negative factor for Samsung, not Apple.

22 days ago on iPhone 5 vs Galaxy S4 3 replies 8 recommends

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AMOLED+ would be awesome.

PenTile is a stopgap.

22 days ago on iPhone 5 vs Galaxy S4

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I’m just curious – what’s one great jailbreak feature that has nothing to do with:

- widgets / toggles
- themes / wallpapers
- anything aesthetic

Couldn’t care less about those unless they significantly change functionality (like that cool Velox notification jailbreak – that sounds promising). I already know about f.lux and Nitrous, what other neat system-bending junk is there?

I’m keeping my 4S on 6.1.2 just in case and I really haven’t seen anything to make me take the leap (f.lux is cool, but it’s not worth the other hassles).

22 days ago on To all the jailbreakers 1 reply 1 recommend

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You could use DoubleTwist (which works pretty well on Android I think). From what I remember it also supports iOS Devices.

But bottom line: iOS devices aren’t mass storage devices. You’ll have to get some form of management software to put media onto them – whether that’s DoubleTwist, iTunes, or something that creates a fake USB storage drive for it.

If you don’t want iTunes, DoubleTwist would be my choice since it knows how to integrate with Apple’s music and video libraries.

An iPad 4 though? If you just want to play some board games why not go for an iPad mini? Way cheaper, more light like a Nexus 7.

22 days ago on Android user with a few questions

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Not gonna lie, I remember vividly thinking “oh right!”

Wonder what happened there. Must’ve blacked out during my 90 second edit time…

25 days ago on Windows gains 7.5% Tablet market share in recent quarter 1 reply

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Remember that part where iOS tablets have 70%+ share of nearly all tablet usage statistics?

Also, Microsoft doesn’t actually sell hardware. :)

26 days ago on Windows gains 7.5% Tablet market share in recent quarter 2 replies

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Remember that news where RIM had to write off 2 million Blackberry tablets because they only sold 300,000 or some such?

2 million ± 1 is the possible magnitude of reported tablet shipments here (and elsewhere) for Microsoft, and also the maximum bound number of Nexus tablets plugged in to Google Play.

Everything else is speculation unless they reveal their methodology.

26 days ago on Windows gains 7.5% Tablet market share in recent quarter 2 replies 4 recommends

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helped Android Samsung take huge marketshare away from the iPhone other Android manufacturers.

Fixed that for you…

27 days ago on Samsung Galaxy S4 review 1 reply 24 recommends

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For some reason I believe either the first time you enable app sync (or perhaps after you restore an iPhone) iTunes wants to dump your whole collection on the device.

It’s dumb. Glad you got around it.

28 days ago on Am I holding it wrong?

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Oh dang. :)

29 days ago on My iOS AND Android experience