Obviously the bar to use the word "hacked" is really low. Attracts more page clicks then "teens read manual and found default password to ATMs"

Not an american, but this is among the things i find more troubling. Many tend to be very patriotic and proudly wave the flag everywhere. Said flag bearing item is almost always "made in China".
Open challenge to anyone living in the US, can you find something with the flag on it and was actually made in the USA (not "finally assembly in the US" or "printed in the US").
Why on earth would you patriotically wear something "Made in China"?

" it is the over-zealous DRM that is killing the format."

See my post above on he minidisc...

Welcome to Sony, where DRM comes first and customers a distant second.

Just because they sold the bluray player, and made the new disks in some "version X" format doesn't mean one should expect them to release a firmware which allows you to the newer disks. They just abandon the player and move on to the next big thing.

MiniDisc was actually a pretty good system at the time and the discs were fairly cheap. what killed it was the ATRAC format. Since Sony music was so concerned with piracy they introduced their proprietary format to prevent copying. A good example of one division of sony killing another i guess.

While it might have been a workable solution had they spent any money/time building a proper converter (mp3->actrac) instead of the garbage they released.

I've been burned by Sony twice (moved to Yamaha long ago) and buying the minidisc which said "mp3 support" right on the box, but having to wait an excessive amount of time to convert to actrac was too much to ask. The wait time naturally assumes the atrac conversion software SonicStage didn't crash/hang...

Each time you respond it just more more and more out there.

"My reasons for going with my purchase isn't relevant to this discussion"
You said you purchased the terrible devices, not me. Do your home work and generally avoid the $50 tablets at walmart.

"You may be happy to carry around 5 different devices depending on what you want to do. I have no interest in giving myself back strain hauling myriad electronics on top of my day to day stuff."

Yeah, because at 10.2 oz (290 g) the kindle is a real backbreaker...
Oddly enough, your "ipad air" weights in at 469 g (1.034 lb) so i guess you must hire someone to carry it for you since it is almost 5 times as heavy?

Even more unusual, is that my tab 2 (581g) and the kindle total 871G which is still less then your "air".

you must really be straining your back hauling your heavy "ipad air".

Android also asks about permissions.

jailbreak, isn't that a nice way to say your OS has a SERIOUS security issue which allows "hackers" full access to the device (root)?
Do you remember how secure it was when you could jailbreak it just by going to a website? Man, that is SUPER safe right?

Android doesn't need to fix "jailbreaks" as you don't need to jailbreak the device to make it useful, it comes that way. If Apple devices were so awsome, why is the jailbreak community so large? One of the first things i did when i got my apple TV's was jailbreak them so they can run XBMC and not be tied to itunes.

"Guess which one is more secure? " - BSD, you know the "opensource" unix IOS and OSX are heavily based on? People might think Linux is a marsupial because Apple does a better job marketing. They don't call OS-X "Darwin plus our fancy GUI" do they? Go to your mac and check the version of XNU (Carnegie Mellon University MACH kernel) and FreeBSD you are using.

if you want to talk security, people dont use apple or android but the old standard blackberry which has government approvals.

You are right, when you own the app store you can put anything you want "through a sieve" and filter out anything which :
Competes with you
Could compete with you
somethign you want to steal later

First, what is with the name calling and insinuation? Unable to carry a conversation without it?

How am i not realistic? I'm not a programmer and i would guess a lot of people who use it are not either. How hard is it to load an app and install it? I guess in your locked in apple world you are not able to "sideload" apps?

It is a way to get a "clean" version of android (no google apps even). I take it you cant just flash your ipad to whatever version you want? Wonder what will happen when Apple stops supporting the Ipad (1/2/3)? I will just flash my tab when it is time....

PS. while cyanogenmod does sell devices now, but they make software for a lot of android devices (there is no relationship between samsung and cynaogenmod for example.).

Shill much?

"Basically, my entire use case was to be an e-reader. The quality of the tablets was so bad that I couldn't even do that well."

Ever consider buying what you want to use the device for? Perhaps trying the product at the store before paying for it? I have some apple products (not many) mostly use Mint Linux and my Android tablet. I also own a Nook (epub) and Kindle (mobi) and use the device for what it is best at.
If i feel like browsing the net i obviously don't grab the nook. Flip side, if i plan on reading for an hour or more i grab the nook/kindle (backlit screens SUCK for long term reading).

" A battery life of a few hours at most."

Going to have to call BS here. I use my tab-2 on the train (3+ hours reading the news and listening to music via blutooth) and leave it on standby connected to a wifi to grab my mail. After running all day i usually have around 80% capacity left. The tab was bought about 2 years ago and still holds a charge just fine.

Since its not "apple locked" it runs the latest version of android via cyanogenmod.com

" Obsolescence on Android is far worse than it is on iOS"

Android has people like cyanogenmod.com what does Apple customers have????
To prevent my android tablet from falling out of date I just flashed it wyt cyanogenmod and now it has the latest version of Andoid on it (and it runs fine).

Go ask those macpro / macmini users who were arbitrarily cut off from Mavericks if they are happy.

According to Apple's website 2GB is the minimum for Maverics: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht...

They also say a 2009 or later mini, does the small difference in processing powre really make a difference then?

It is funny how words like "ancient" are thrown around in discussions like this.

Here's an interesting point similar to what someone posted down below.
In my basement I have a SUN X4500 Storage server (circa 2007) and it is currently running Solaris 11.1 without issues. The system has two "ancient" AMD Opteron's but since little has changed in terms of processor instruction sets they run fine.
So this is a system from 2007 running an OS released in 2011 and supported until 2024. Heck, I might upgrade to 11.2 when it is released in the next month or so.

Artificially preventing you from upgrading in this case seems more like a means to sell hardware then to "protect the user experience".

He has a 2008 mac mini, lets assume the mid 2007 model with a T7200 Intel Core 2 Duo whereas the 2009 mini uses 2.53 GHz (P8700) Intel Core 2 Duo

Go to any benchmark sites and do a comparison of those processors, they are pretty close yet one supports Mavericks, the other tops out at lion?

You know a lot of times those limits are artificial right? People have figured out how to trick mavericks into installing on "unapproved" systems.

Sure, how?

Looks like it only has a "lightning" interface: http://support.apple.com/kb/sp...

i know, you use your USB 2 Lighening dongle?

So by that token the car manufactures can say they are following a standard (the one they made) just like apple did with their dock connector?

Granted (and you probably already assumed this) i dont have an iphone but several coworkers do. I often hear then trying to borrow other peoples chargers/cables . Care to enlighten me as to why they cant just use the standard "micro-usb" cords on their desks that they use to charge our work-issued phones? I can charge my non-apple phone on the same cord i use for my BB without issues.

My guess is they forgot their $21 "adapter"
http://store.apple.com/ca/prod...

Your concerns are valid.
I dont drive often and so it is not much of a pain to use it and put it away when i do. Flip side, the days of them being > $300 and worth stealing are long gone.