For whatever reason I was under the impression that those phones were larger than they are. Thanks for pointing those out to me!
I'm still probably going to switch to Apple because I've been working towards being more privacy conscious in the last several months and Apple's stance on privacy and encryption is appealing.
I was an android early adopter who switched in 2012 - and I'll explain why.
At the time I had a T-Mobile G2 which was approaching the end of its natural lifecycle, I was also dissatisfied with the software quality of android overall - at the time I was looking for another android phone running stock android with a keyboard (something that didnt exist effectively), because the android on screen keyboard at the time was so awful - so I started looking at the iPhone - at the time I expected the same difficulties with iOS that I had with android (android always felt like it was half-done, for example non-scrolling context menu's that scrolled off the screen) - but I found overall that the software quality was just better with iOS - and added benefit is, my iPhone largely 'just works' - I spend all day repairing and building technology, the last thing I want to do is have to invest cycles to keep my own kit working.
With iPhone when it doesn't work (or has an issue), I take it back to the 'fruit store', and they make it all better, without me having to be much involved in the process - however with iOS this has happened precisely twice (once for a software bug, the other for a hardware issue), versus in two Android phones, I was performing a factory reset of the device about once a year due to software bugs (text messaging DB, apps that wouldnt uninstall, having to perform space management with a SD card and internal storage, email that would just stop syncing randomly, digitizer would stop working, etc), as well as a lack of updates to still new-ish hardware. While I realize with Google I have much more control and flexibility with how I can use my device, for me at least this added control is largely unimportant for my use case - yes there have been a few cases I wish I could do things with my iPhone that it doesnt do, but these are mostly edge cases, when I want to use my phone in a non-typical use case.
In addition with Apple, I know what the product they're selling is - and its not me. With Google, I've got a sneaking suspicion that I'm the product - don't get me wrong, I use Google, I like Google, but the relationship between Apple and I is much more clear cut. I also trust Apple as more likely to keep my data secure, and to stand at my side if someone (specifically the government) wanted at it.
As a Samsung Note 2/4 owner I used to give myself a lot of excuses as to why iPhones were "bad" -- non-expandable storage (even though I never maxed out the storage that came built in with my Android phones), non-user replaceable battery (even though my battery hardly ever dips below 50%, as whenever I'm in a place where I can plug it in, it's plugged in), a more restrictive ecosystem (even though I barely use more than the web browser and a few other common apps on any phone).
My tipping point was visiting Canada one time with data roaming turned off. Despite this, Sprint decided overnight that my Note 4 needed to download the Sprint NASCAR app that I did not request or have any intention of ever using. The download, since I was roaming in another country, cost me about $20 on my next statement.
Shortly thereafter I got an iPhone 6S Plus and haven't looked back. I'm still with Sprint, but thanks to iOS's restrictions I don't have to have any of their junk installed on there, which couldn't be removed from my Note 4 without rooting it.
I will say, however, that I'm still not a fan of iPhones killing the headphone jack, so I don't intend to upgrade until it becomes strictly necessary.
I only use the headphone jack for a wired headset telephone style headset, I only very rarely listen to music on my phone. For my use case, getting a charging headphone adapter dongle and leaving it hooked up to the headset I use, will serve my needs perfectly.
And that may be how I go, but for now I have no need to upgrade. iOS 11 hasn't given me any of the issues on the 6S Plus other people talk about (perhaps because I use my iPhone in a more limited capacity than many other people).
I'm in a similar boat as you. I was an iPhone user who switched to the HTC One for Android, and had problems. I then went to a Nexus 5 thinking it would fix my issues, but still had various problems. When the large screen iPhones came out I gave up my experiment, switched back, and wondered why I ever left.
People tell me Android has improved since then, but it always felt not quite done. I'm still happy with the iPhone. Meanwhile, a co-worker in the office received his new Pixel 2 XL and RMAed it the same day because the proximity sensor doesn't work.
Switching to Apple doesn't really seem like a good way to move towards being more privacy conscious. Even if you don't mind the walled garden and lack of control of your own device (you should if you really want to care about privacy), recent revelations like silently granting special permissions to Uber app should remove any remaining appeal there may have been in them.
I'm not looking to build the fort knox of phones or anything, I'm trying to take the path of least resistance to having a more private, secure device.
I'd rather have a phone/OS built by a company whose primary source of revenue is not user data.
From my, admittedly limited, understanding of the issues between iOS and Android it seems like iOS is more secure/privacy oriented with some obvious caveats like the Uber app issue you mentioned.
All I'm saying is that you'll just be under a delusion. False sense of security is way worse than no security at all.
If you really want/need to stick to the big two systems, some AOSP build with microG is way better option that iOS, where you can do almost nothing to actually get your privacy back into your own hands.
Yea I was just about to mention that as well. I never liked touchwiz but I just got the s8 and it's a nice phone. Maybe I just don't like the default icons and design? I'm not sure, but I customized it to look more like regular Android.
I use Nova Launcher, it's much nicer; I highly suggest it. there's so much more flexibility especially for these huge screens (I'm a Note 8 user). For icons, check out the Samsung Themes app. You can apply icon sets from different themes without touching the rest of the UI.
That's interesting, for my nexus 5 (granted it's only a few days old so perhaps there is some break-in) seems to go down to 80-85% in 10-15 minutes of morning web surfing/reading.
With high brightness and a lot of active, screen-on use, it will absolutely chew through the battery (though 20% in 15 minutes is extremely excessive: For wifi browsing Anandtech found it to be among the top devices, actually beating the benchmark iPhone devices. They then removed that result from the listing pending the full review release). What impressed me most from it is the standby time which is extremely impressive, even in difficult conditions.
Agreed - the sample size is also really small to be interpreting slower arrival times as well, if only 1 or 2 packages took a long time it's likely they just found an outlier.
According to http://www.atheistberlin.com/study they got a significant Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test at p < 0.01. The Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test is nonparametric (i.e. sacrifices some statistical power in order to not make assumptions about the underlying distribution of the data) so is meaningful even if there is a long tail of packages that take longer due to circumstances outside of the study variable.
Sample size is something that must be interpreted in the presence of power. You can make a solid conclusion with a very small sample size if the true difference in arrival times is very large, given that the assumptions of the hypothesis test hold (t-test can be a little ridiculous with some of its assumptions sometimes).
In the original article, one of the footnotes mentioned that they tested the data using Wilcoxon's Signed-Rank test, which mitigates a lot of the impact of single outliers.
I'd love to see the raw data though, to see an even less-sensitive method to outliers (sign test). If the difference between the groups is as large as the article would lead us to believe, the loss of power should not present any problem.
Yeah, that 3 days could either be damning, or absolutely nothing. Until we can examine the data this is a non-story despite how juicy we may want it to be.
I don't understand your analogy: in the Craigslist case Craigslist has no issues being free, but others have issues with it being free. Craiglist is not making changes to their free model to appease others.
In the RIM case the system is secure except when they are giving access to the system to governments - making it not secure (at least in many people's eyes).
My point was that the BBC reporter was trying to create an issue out of something that is a core principle of the company (and something they do well in fact) and is intentionally misleading. I was trying to show the ridiculousness of it and help justify why the CEO got flustered and ended the interview.
So RIM is secure, the CEO is proud of it, and the question inferred that they're not secure.
Craigslist is free, the CEO is (probably) proud of it, and a question that infers that they have a problem because they don't charge for listings would be similar.
The Usual (http://usual.com/) is hiring generalist engineers to work on our back-end (python/django/rabbit/possibly socket.io) application as well as client applications (android, iOS) for mobile/online restaurant ordering. We're looking for smart people who'd like to tackle a variety of problems.
We're early stage, in a big space (online restaurant ordering), and have an experienced team. We'd love for you to be a part of it.
How big do you all think Facebook can reasonably get to? I have to think it's going to be difficult for Facebook to grow anywhere near as fast as they did to this point unless they can get to China.
It seems like most US companies (search, portal, etc.) haven't done very well in China - will Facebook be able to buck this trend?
I agree there has to be a saturation point they will reach. I thought it would have been reached before 500 million users though. I think Facebook could do very well in China, just like they are on the way to becoming #1 in India and Brazil.
Facebook is not accessible in China now -- at least not in its full form as we know it. Facebook will have to morph significantly to enter China (filtering, cooperating with authorities, cultural barriers, etc.). It will be interesting to see how this process works out.
I think the point re: credit cards is that PayPal has actually been able to create an alternative payment system that lives outside the banking system - I think PayPal itself is a bank (am I wrong?) in that they take your deposits when you leave your money in your account.
I agree that there is no getting around the banking system completely (unless you rely in cash somehow), but theoretically you could enable another way to move money from one bank account to another without charging 20%+ interest rates and exorbitant late fees, no?
...but theoretically you could enable another way to move money from one bank account to another without charging 20%+ interest rates and exorbitant late fees, no?
Like a debit card, a wire transfer or a check? Or like setting up online bill pay to pay off your credit card in full every month?
Right, so all of those work now through the existing financial system, but they take a long time to clear (I believe ACH is several days).
I imagine a startup (would it have to be a bank? I'm not sure) could build something where the transfer is semi-instantaneous and disperse the risk among it's other customers somehow in a more equitable manner (perhaps charging a fee?). It might, of course, be difficult to compete against the credit card, which seems free to most consumers (but is subsidized by the merchants and those borrowers who don't pay in full)
I'm curious how you use Evernote to keep it effective. I use Evernote as well to keep track of ideas, but I find as I start to fill out the ideas with research and notes the "parent" section - the list of ideas - becomes overwhelmed.
I ended up moving to a Google Apps Spreadsheet for a list of ideas, and then fill out info on each idea in Evernote, but would love to hear about better methods...
I use a bulleted list first, add sub bullets as ideas come, and when I'm ready to work on it, I make it into a full blown note with all my details in it.
