[Palomine]

It's called "a means of justifying our market cap". They have to show people that they're busy doing something, even if that "something" is fucking up things that already work perfectly fine.

So, yeah, fuck Apple, and fuck the greedy-ass ghost of Steve Jobs too.

Of course, that runs contrary to the core principles of capitalism, since I can't think of any large producer of technologically-advanced consumer products (be it hardware from Dell, Krupp, Ford or Ferrari) or software that doesn't alter (aka "update") its products with almost yearly frequency, even if there doesn't seem to be any need to do so from a functionality POV. It's called planned obsolescence, though I'm sure most companies would deny that as their motive and claim they're simply making improvements to benefit consumers. Of course, no one forces consumers to buy in to this process of constant updates: I'm sure somewhere there's a guy still saving his files onto floppy disks in protest of frivolous updates.

You got that right!

That is why the Microsoft Surface Pro 3 is winning. SD card slot, USB port, the whole shebang.

I played with the new Surface tablets... they're nice but IMO ridiculously overpriced (the absolutely cheapest/low-end version of the Surface Pro 3 has an $800 MSRP, with the high-end version going for almost two grand... $1,200-1,300 seems to be the common retail price range for the most widely-sold versions, judging by what Fry's displays and stocks. I guess Microsoft figured they'd stake out the high(er/est) ground well above Apple's iPads and Samsung's Galaxy tabs pricewise.  

For half of what the a mid-range Surface Pro 3 costs, you can get a really nice Windows laptop which will be better equipped, longer-lived and much, much easier to fix/upgrade than a Surface (if you opt for one without an optical drive, it'll be pretty damn light and thin too). If an actual tablet (not laptop) equipped with USB and an SD card slot are what's wanted, Samsung makes some great tablets in the iPad price range, and they're unburdened by Windows (a perfectly fair comparison since you have to run Windows on a Surface). I'm not saying that Surface tabs will be relegated to the same historical rank that Microsoft's Zune now is, but such an outcome is hardly unimaginable.

I know iPad sales are slipping and Microsoft reports Surface revenue is up (but tellingly, they don't say how many units actually shipped... I suspect the number is somewhat less than the 12.3 million iPads Apple sold last quarter ...probably just a fraction of iPad numbers). Regardless of units sold, Apple's iPad revenue last quarter (using Microsoft's preferred metric, according to ZDnet) was well over over five billion dollars even with the year-to-year decline, whereas Microsoft's 2014Q4 tablet revenue barely broke 900 million... less than 20% of what Apple made in the same product category. How that equates to Microsoft "winning" I dunno.

If someone was beating me with more than 500% as much productivity/achievement, I think I'd find it hard to rationalize that I was winning, regardless of quarterly trends. JMHO.

[TheZookie007]

I meant that the product is winning, not the company

But yeah, the Surface Pro 3 is expensive. Still cheaper than an Apple Watch Edition watch though

[Palomine]

I meant that the product is winning, not the company

But yeah, the Surface Pro 3 is expensive. Still cheaper than an Apple Watch Edition watch though

That's like comparing apples and oranges torque wrenches! A Surface Pro 3 is cheaper than a Porsche Cayman S also.

Also, we'll have to agree to disagree: I don't see how the Surface (any version of it really, past or present) is "winning" anything, unless of course you're using the term "winning" in the ironic, Charlie Sheen/toothless/drug addled/herpes ridden sense. I mean really: a Samsung Galaxy Tab or iPad with a keyboard cover costs about half the price of a Pro 3 and a comparable/decent Windows laptop costs even less. Or is a "winning" product simply one that manages to charge several hundred dollars extra just because the plastic it's made of is colored blue?

[Swallowing his Geritol with a Metamucil chaser, Palomine sucks in his dentures and shakes his arthritic, liver-spotted fist at the world in general and them damn foolish marketing kidz at Microsoft in particular.]

[Palomine]

I've been playing catch-up with the thousands of posts I fell behind on while I was offline recently. I've been at it for a couple of days straight and still have a ways to go.

Thus: when saving attachments, I've had to manually edit/rename "image.jpg" posts one at a time several hundred times so far in order to avoid overwriting existing files, and in so doing, it's inevitable that I've unintentionally created at least a couple hundred more/new duplicate files on my drive (I don't take the extra time to visually compare the contents of the newest "image.jpg" I'm about to save to any of the hundred earlier files that had that same filename).

I swear to Glob, if/when this iOS madness of stripping the original filename off of every uploaded attachment and changing it into "image.jpg" is ever fixed (Apple probably doesn't even consider it a bug... those bastages!  ) I will literally go up on my roof and howl at the moon with joyous abandon.

[solvegas]

  ) I will literally go up on my roof and howl at the moon with joyous abandon.

Just don't do it nekkid, ok ? Don't want the cops to take you downtown for disturbing the peace AND traumatizing the neighbors. 

[gOOber]

So far I`ve been spared.

[tdotter]

 Can anyone see this video that I posted below?
I have a new iPod and it goes to a play screen.When I click on play nothing happens.
I don't understand why I have mov and MP4 files on my iPod but whenever I click on one of those files that have been posted on here,I can never watch it?

[gonZo]

Yeah, I can see it. Nice rug.

Apparently, the way your browser handles video files is different than the way the iPod OS handles video.

Additional feedback: yah, I can DL and play the .mov file fine too... I had the same beige wall-to-wall carpeting years ago. No idea why you're having trouble playing certain video files on your iPod... maybe .mov and .mp4 files generated using other OSes/other devices have header info or use codecs or something else that the iPod's iOS doesn't handle flexibly? Is there some other video-player app you can install and try (instead of the default/built-in "play screen" tool?) the way that PC users often use VLC instead of the video player that their OS came with?

I suppose we would at least be grateful that iOS didn't also rename your beige carpet clip "video.mov" the way every pic gets renamed to "image.jpg." 

You got the new iPod Touch I'm assuming? I saw the specs for it... starting at $199. for the 16M version... I don't even want one but the idea of having a device that does much of what the newest/current iPhone does (except phone of course) is kind of appealing. I wonder what's the state-of-the-art these days for making and receiving telephone calls via VOIP from a new iPod Touch when in a WIFI network? -Pal