The last time I wore a watch was in high school before I started playing volleyball. After I started, there was no point to a watch. There's basically no point of wearing a watch today. It's only useful for people that want to show how expensive their Rolex is.

Due to poor coverage by Verizon, and Sprint in my area, I chose ATT when I switched around 10 years back. Huge parts of western MA and tons of dead spots in south boston are still an issue for Verizon. I know this first hand, since I had them for over 5 years.

To say "no one chooses phones based on carriers" is just wrong. Some of the points you make are valid, but making blanket statements weakens your argument.

I used to work in the mobile industry in 2000 when smarts phones first appeared. In fact one of the first smart phones was from Neopoint. Many of the GPS features people use every day existed as far back as 1999. I am glad for the competition between android and iOS. There's enough space for everyone to make money. It's not a "zero sum" game, so people should stop pretending it is.

A recent article on Yahoo News suggests that Google is changing it's mind on NFC, so the adoption was premature! Plus, I'm not convinced of the value of NFC. At starbucks I use their app to pay and it's easy. No need for NFC.

I'll sell my phone records to the NSA any day as long as I get the same fee. That would pay for my cell phone bill with extra to go to my kids college fund.

Until you produce a 3 yr old of any gender that can hack a ROM to do the same thing, the comment is troll bait. Even then, the chances of the most brilliant 3 yr olds hacking a ROM is pretty remote. Parenting is complicated and there's no manual. The best that one can do is love their child and try to instill good habits, respect for others and critical thinking.

Anyone that has a vague understanding of breaking into systems knows it's happening all over the world. It's not a question of "is government A attacking other governments?" The real question is "what data has been stolen and who is tightening their security to keep sensitive data safe?" You'd have to be a moron to think it's not happening.

Samsung has worked hard and they deserve a congrats. I do own an iPhone, but unlike some people I don't see Samsung's success a threat. I like competition, so this should make everyone push harder. Though I doubt RIM or Nokia will last much longer. HTC and Google/Motorola will hopefully push harder to beat Samsung. I hope this encourages Apple to push harder too. Though honestly, I doubt HTC, Motorola, Apple, Nokia, and Rim need us to tell them to push harder.

I would think a "geek" would know to wait until all the votes to come in and then look at the math. Did you go to Mitt Romney's school for the rich, where 1+1=5? On this planet, 1+1=2 and there's even a proof for it. Not that anyone other than a hardcore math major should/would read it. Obama was a so-so first term president. hopefully he'll do a better job. No, I didn't vote for him, but now that he is there "we" the people need to keep him accountable.

It's a freakin phone people. Pull your collective heads out of your butt. What a bunch of spoiled people. It's not the end of the world. People wonder why America is falling behind Asia and Europe. It's because we (americans) are so wrapped up in pointless stupid crap. I like my smart phone, but that is not in my list of top 100 priorities. Sure it's fun, but it's a phone!

Yes, apple has gone on record they use Yelp POI, but that can't be the only POI data they use. They have to use multiple POI sources. Since you have worked for "one of the biggest" you should know that often the POI data is wrong or off. There's a reason why many companies like Google and Verizon provide a way for users to correct lat/long. For example, Verizon's customers can fix the location of their business. Google's map editing tool lets users fix it. I've used mapquest, mapinfo, yahoo, google, mappoint and a few other minor ones. As a developer I've done quality control by comparing the results of multiple systems to validate the error percent. Sometimes one system is correct and all the others are off. Clearly apple's search implementation is partly to blame, but the problem is far from simple. Given you have experience, your flame towards apple is hyperbole. I've seen errors in every single map software I've used. When I looked at OSS GIS source code to get a better understanding of the internals, it was very clear to me the problem is very complex. It's going to take a lot of time for apple to fix all the issues given how tough the problem is. In terms of POI, I know some yellow/white page systems use stock navteq/teleatlas POI as a base and add to it. For thinks airports, train stations, monuments and other big landmarks they tend to be ok from first hand experience. Smaller thinks like museums, movie theaters and other stuff it's quite bad. For example, a movieplex at a big mall.

I've worked with many GIS frameworks and usually the POI data is part of the GIS database. You can always add to it, but it comes with a base set of POI. The problem isn't as simple as "it's apple's fault." It's actually a combination of missing/bad data and poorly implemented search. Take for example searching for a street number on a specific street. Often times, the actual location is several hundred feet away from what the GIS database has. The only way to fix that is to correct the data. Searching GIS database using GPS lat/long isn't that straight forward. On your smart phone look at how the accuracy fluctuates while you're stationary. Therefore searching based on location isn't that simple. If you're on a one way street, but you want to be on the next street over how is the systems suppose to give you directions? Clearly, once you get into the nitty gritty of GIS search, the problem is far from trivial. It's easy to say a bunch of non-sense when you don't actually understand the domain and the finer detailers.

You're joking right. Google and Apple both already have face recognition software for years. The government has been using face recognition software for years also. Using face recognition to give targeted adds will happen one day, but the infrastructure to do that at your local mall isn't there yet. NN can help improve face recognition software, though it's not really necessary. Plus it's rather easy to fool face recognition software with something called makeup.

Talk about a troll piece. So what you're saying is that aluminium is cheaper than plastic. Therefore apple cut corners by using aluminium. Several members of my family have had the back glass crach on their iphone4, so I'm glad the back is not glass. The statement "apple is it's own worst enemy" is true of every large company. I don't understand why people on both sides are so passionate. It's a damn phone. I used to work in the mobile phone industry. Every company is trying to lower the cost as much as possible and maximize the profit margins. I've owned nokia and motorola phones over the last 15 years and you know what. They are all cheap pieces of plastic. You drop it the wrong way, and bam the thing is dead. Let's not kid anyone. Samsung is just as evil as the next multi-national corporation.

To my knowledge, google doesn't sell their GIS. I've looked in the past. Google doesn't have a page about selling their GIS data. Given that google licenses data from several sources, they probably don't have permission to resell the data they get from navteq, and tele atlas. For US maps, all of them use USGS tiger data and then add to it.

I don't work for ancestry.com, and they don't pay me. I recently signed up ancestry.com to research our family geneology. My biggest complaint is the search functionality often returns way too much data. Their search/matching algorithm is quite eager. The service isn't cheap, but then again how much would it cost to manually do the research yourself? How much time would you have to spent going through dusty census records? How much time do you have to spent tracking down the geneology going back up the tree? It took me a few days to understand how their search works, but once I got a hang of it, it was easier to find records for people in our family tree. It's not perfect, but it does quite a bit. If I had to search census records going back to 1910, it sure as heck would cost more than a monthly subscription.