> I never got into Linux. I swear to God, it's only lack of time. I'm past the years of my life where I can really dig into something like running a Linux system. I'm very sympathetic to the whole idea; Linux people always think the way I want to think.
In another article, I read that he was dismissive of the whole specs race...this is not necessarily at odds with people who build their own computers, but a recognizance that simplicity has its own advantages for a hacker who wants to operate on a different level.
I don't see why anyone expects Woz to be a die-hard rabid fanboy of all of Apple's products ... he hasn't been involved in Apple's product development for almost 30 years, and he's obviously not someone to blindly evangelize based on marketing hype. Now if s/Woz/JonyIve/g then this article would be more noteworthy.
Simply put, it's because plenty of people don't know much about him, and so "Apple founder prefers <rival> to <Apple product>" makes not just good link bait, but good content for those people as well.
Woz is a hacker at heart. He is always going to find Apple's limitations on iOS apps annoying. People read too much into his statements. He is a very straightforward guy. If he really believed that an Android phone was superior, he would say that without dissembling.
He complains about being misquoted all the time. I wouldn't be surprised if that happens again.
The way this article is written and the way they use the word "fanboy" highlights their bias much more than anyone else's. They have the makings of an interesting article, but instead of writing an interesting story or adding any insight they decided to make it a versus thing. Yay, just what the web needs. :/
You should be a non native English speaker with a strong accent as I'm to see the big difference in speech recognition between the two. Android voice recognition works 99% of times, Siri 50% or less. Maybe with native speakers the difference is less radical.
The title is a bit misleading. It ends with him saying that he thinks the Iphone is best for most people. He really just praised Android for a few features but maintained that the Iphone is a better product in his mind.
It didn't seem misleading to me. iPhone limits flexibility far more than Android in the hopes of making it less daunting for the masses. Woz is a geek, so he likes flexibility in his tech.
I think implying that Linux leads to "yak-shaving" is disingenuous. I've found the standard Ubunutu and KDE distros are completely usable as is; there is no need to change anything. Just because you can fiddle all you want does not mean you have to.
Moreover, my relatively tech-unsophisticated roommate recently switched to Ubunutu; he has had no problems running the completely standard setup (I think he hasn't even changed the background).
On the other hand, on OS X, if something genuinely annoys you (like the menu-bar at the top) you would find it very difficult to fix.
What a great term! I, too, am scared of yak-shaving although I recently switched to Vim which you could argue is the mother of all yak-shaving exercises (I don't regret it though).
Right. And considering the overwhelming majority of consumers are exactly those types of people, the iPhone is a better product since it is more appropriate for most people.
If your job is "doing" technology, there's something to be said for things that let you just "use" it without having to "do" it.
The iPhone or iPad let you just be a user with very little cognitive load.
If you want to tinker with your handset even while you're spending your day or maybe even weekend tinkering with servers, that's a different story. Android's definitely the tinker's tartare.
The tinker's tartare would at least come with root access. That "thing" I have running on my Samsung is anything but hacker-friendly. Instead it does a perfect job of feeding Google's advertisements as well as the crap both the manufacturer and my data provider independently installed.
If that "thing" wants to be the hacker's tartare, maybe it would give me access to its bootloader, show open drivers and not call me a "pirate" for circumventing their laughable restrictions.
It would also allow me to manipulate the Linux it claims to deliver the way I want it, the way 40 years of Unix culture taught me.
Apple's gadgets may be a hacker's nightmare, but Androids are far from being the answer.
I disagree. Samsung is being very sympathetic with hackers tinkering with their devices. They never locked the bootloader like HTC and Motorola did, and they are always in touch with relevant members of the android community, like cyanogen and supercurio. If you are not even willing to root a samsung device, that is a dead simple thing to do, you are not really into tinkering for the device. Is unrealistic to expect that anyone will give rooted devices to every single user, a "regular" non-geek user can destroy the device in minutes granting root access to the wrong apps or deleting system resources.
He has a point. Jailbreaking an iOS device is also a dead simple process, and they too are wonderfully hackable machines, arguably more-so than Android, once you have root access. But I'm not sure that means Apple's iDevices are great machines for hackers.
Jailbreaking an iOS device is not a dead simple process. First, you need to worry about versions. Did you get your phone when the latest version was not yet cracked? Do you have to worry about the irreversible change of flashing ipad firmware onto your iphone? What about tethered jailbreaks? What is that even?
Then are the updates. You can't just update to the next version of iOS when it comes out. You often need to wait many many months for newer versions to be jailbroken. There is always the threat that you will never be able to break the next version due to the security race between hackers and Apple.
The end result of all this, and I've seen this with every single jailbroken phone user, is that users who jailbreak don't often update, if they ever do. This is not a very ideal situation for something that should be available officially and by default.
And finally, you won't often find reputable software developers distributing applications that require jailbreaking. On Android, a good example of this is Skype. It's available through the market, but easy to install outside the market. It's also a top notch company and product.
Being a profitable product does not excuse it from criticism, nor is it proof of quality or utility (although iOS is certain high quality!) Being profitable is only an indication that people will buy it and that it has well balance profit margins.
There are plenty of other very profitable products that have less than stellar properties. For rather extreme examples: fast food, kitchy tourist items, low quality low cost furniture, and scams like power balance bracelets. There is a place for these products, no doubt, but nobody would argue that McDonalds is a great find dining restaurant. Ultimately profitability is quite orthogonal to the topic we are discussing.
Regarding your other comments, giving one example of one Apple device that is currently easy to jailbreak does not address my comments at all. As for this remote hd product you mention (it would be a good idea to give links for things like this in the future), if it does exist, it is certainly a mighty risky business. For one, Apple could pull their app store app at any time. They've done it before. Second, basing your product on a requirement to break the security of a device is not a wise move. Not only is jailbreaking unsupported, Apple actively tries to prevent it. They even tried to have it ruled illegal.
The example I gave for Android is quite different. This functionality is expressly allowed and supported by Google. I'm not sure if some carriers lock it out, but there are enough hand sets that are officially supported that it can make sense. Further, rather than working against the companies producing handsets and the operating system, Swype works with them and has been integrated into the base system of at least some Samsung products. There is no question that Android is more open in these regards and also more flexible.
Wether it matters to the majority of consumers is another discussion. According to this article, Wozniak thinks that it might not.
Jailbreaking an iOS device is often not a dead simple process, unless you can show me how to to jailbreak my 4S. I've been waiting for a jailbreak there for quite a while....
Not entirely true. You can jailbreak the iPad 2 using http://jailbreak.me/if you're running iOS 4.3.3. iOS 5 is still unavailable, and I wouldn't expect it to be available until the corresponding iPhone 4S jailbreak is out.
Let's define what root access means. It's not a fancy "feature" that only "advanced" users will know how to use. You don't really "own" a device unless you have root access. The way I see it, "non-root" users are the feature preventing harm, not the other way around.
How would you feel if Toshiba didn't grant you root access on your laptop/mac/machine? It is as destructive, isn't it?
I see your point, but I think the post that you are responding to is clear that the Samsung bootloader is unlocked. If the bootloader is unlocked, you can do anything that you want with the device (including installing the tools to use root access).
i simply would not buy them, not where i need a general purpose computer. but when i bought my ipad, iphon, etc, i was fully aware of what i was getting for my money, so i cant whine about it.
i am no fan of lockdown, but im also capable of making decisions about how i spend my money. i bought the gizmos because i like how they work. if someone wants something not on the market ..... gobuild it and sell it,right?
i certainly own my iphone. i paid full price for it. if i want to open it up and screw with it, i am free to try whatever i want. im also clearly responsible fr the consequences if i do so. thats why i bought a factory unlocked iphone, and dont mess with it, but dont mind hacking away on a much cheaper appletv. if i brick the atv, no biggie, but id rather not be out a grand for the phone.
I think it's fair to say that his opinion of Android Voice Commands vs Siri is far from universal. Nuance's voice recognition is widely regarded as state-of-the-art, but of course this can vary depending on one's accent. There's a pretty fair shootout on the "commands" features here, and Siri generally comes ahead - http://searchengineland.com/head-to-head-siri-vs-google-voic...
Not just accent. The amount of sample data they have seems to matter a lot too.
Google voice works much better now than it did when it was first released. But it's still fairly easy to find a phrase that it will mess up. For example the names of craft beer breweries and the names of their beers. The individual words it will recognise fine. Put them together and it just fails.
The article you cite is from October, which I assume means it compares the 4S to Android 3.x. Judging by the screenshots, its also on a non-Nexus phone, for what its worth.
The voice command functions and interface were completely overhauled in Ice Cream Sandwich.
Where do you see that? I saw that Google's speech-to-text now updates the text inline, definitely a nice feature, but no changes to the voice actions (it still operates on static, specific commands) or anything in the ballpark of Siri's interface.
A non-rooted android is pretty useless. I was trying to find a way to disable the volume buttons on my GF's Nexus S, only to find that I with my rooted phone, could just edit a configuration file, but was completely unable to do it on her non-rooted phone. This is just one example, but I've run into many other hurdles trying to do simple tasks due to the 'security' design they've put into Android. Not having a root account by default on a device is handcuffs, whether it's Android or IOS.
Riiight, but disabling the volume buttons on a phone is an extreme edge case in the functionality one might expect from their phone. Non-rooted Android still has 99.9% of the functionality the average user expects.
but I've run into many other hurdles trying to do simple tasks due to the 'security' design they've put into Android
Maybe I'm cynical, but I think that the average user absolutely needs this security design. They'd probably turn off the volume buttons by mistake then think their phone is broken.
Giving the ability to do system administration tasks on a device you own is not treating people like system administrators. It's giving someone the ability to work on, modify and learn about (and break (and fix)) their device if they so choose.
Well Google gives you the ability to root their phones, what more do you want? You don't have to hack it, rooting the phone is a standard procedure. Of course you should stick to the Nexus line. But if you are knowledgeable enough to be an admin, you probably already knew that.
Yikes, one would think that a site called Hacker News would be a bit nicer to someone talking about enabling people through learning about technology. No wonder I started my own version: http://kruhft.dyndns.org
I wouldn't say I was spamming but promoting an alternative place where people that think that having root on and having control over your own phone is a good thing and won't get down voted for it.
At least that was the point when I wrote the original, as you say spammy, comment.
Reply to untog: yes it's a plug for my site, deal with it. With all the meta-discussion lately about this site and how it's gone downhill, maybe I feel it's time to try and create a new one that lives a bit more up to the name Hacker.
No, the average user won't be a sysadmin, but what about their kids? (Oh god, did I just do a think of the children?)
hmm... i think by the timie my kids are old enough to start hacking in daddys lab, whenever that is, lets say thats 10 years from now, we will be able to build today,s iphone for fun, it will be old news. witness arduino, the cool rise of homebrewed gizmos out there.... software And hardware are out there to cheaply make all kinds of cool stuff. my kids should have no problem hacking away, probably on stuff i wont even understand at some point. if they end up interested, of course.
RingGuard stops volume buttons having effect on the ring volume until you confirm with a screen tap on a popup dialog.
Your example is a very weak premise to hang a conclusion as strong as you have on it. I can make phone calls on my non-rooted android phone, for example; that's a use, and directly contracts your claim of "useless". Less hyperbole would improve your argument.
A program like RingGuard and VolumeLocker don't work in this case, where the phone case causes the volume buttons to get pressed unintentionally, causing the confirmation dialog to basically always be popping up all the time. This type of input behavior also makes the programs not work as intended, hence my desire for a more stable solution. Disabling the volume keys seemed like the best option for this situation.
True, I shouldn't have started with 'useless', and yes a non-rooted phone does make phone calls. I guess what I mean to say by 'useless', is that they are useless for those that want to go beyond what is allowed by the default non-root install, security be damned. I am one of those users, and my GF is not, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to work on her phone, especially something so simple as editing a configuration file.
Disabling the volume keys likely requires root, but modifying the volume setting does not. The few android applications that need to do this typically listen for volume changes and then change them back. For example, I've seen some kids apps (Zoodle's) that allow a parent to set a max volume.
Yes, I've tried a few for her, and they all don't work as advertised. She always wants the ringer on max, so I figured that I would see if there was a simple way to disable the buttons. Did it on my phone in about 5 minutes as a test (mine is rooted) so I went about to try it on hers. No root, no dice (can't remount /system as rw to edit the file).
So then I thought, how about an app for that. Listen for keypresses, set the volume to max, easy peasy. Ha. Services can't listen for keypresses. Apps only listen when they are in focus. All apps are run as their own user and group and the /dev/input devices are not readable by anybody but root or those in the input group. 3 ideas on a simple app, no way to do it without rooting the phone.
Services cannot listen for keypresses, but can't they change the volume? Why not have the service periodically check the volume and reset it to max automatically?
Ie, something like:
// Get the AudioManager
AudioManager audioManager =
(AudioManager)this.getSystemService(Context.AUDIO_SERVICE);
// Set the volume of played media to maximum.
audioManager.setStreamVolume (
AudioManager.STREAM_MUSIC,
audioManager.getStreamMaxVolume(AudioManager.STREAM_MUSIC),
0);
Unless there are more requirements here that I am missing, this sounds achievable without root.
I'm on my second android phone (Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus), and haven't found a reason to root it yet. I was on an N900 and OpenMoko before them, and a good stock experience is actually quite nice.
Honestly this example isn't really selling me. If the phone hasn't been screwed-up by the carrier, what's missing?
> I never got into Linux. I swear to God, it's only lack of time. I'm past the years of my life where I can really dig into something like running a Linux system. I'm very sympathetic to the whole idea; Linux people always think the way I want to think.
In another article, I read that he was dismissive of the whole specs race...this is not necessarily at odds with people who build their own computers, but a recognizance that simplicity has its own advantages for a hacker who wants to operate on a different level.