Okay, so let's just pretend for a second that I didn't specify any other device types or reasons in my very short example. Let's also ignore the mental acrobatics you performed to disregard the remainder of that chunklet of information I posted in a seemingly feeble attempt at steering the clearly biased back toward the gray area within which the rest of us live.

Let's pretend all of that. Even still, you're saying that the iPhone was a technological evolution of devices that were not only already in existence, but established enough that there were known workarounds for the seemingly terrible user experience.

Even if that were exactly the case, to hold Apple so highly for their "accomplishments" that you feel they're justified in suing everyone else for "stealing" mind-numbingly obvious IP is sociopathic at best.

Look, If you guys enjoy living within the walled garden of Apple, great. I'm happy for you. However, to think they somehow developed everything in a vacuum and everything to come after is a mindless copy... Jesus Christ, man.

Ugh. Enough of this backwards justification for this crap.

Do a few minutes of 5th-grader-level research and you'll find that there were more than a few phones/pdas/whatever that had touch screens with grids of icons before the iPhone existed. The tech simply wasn't cheap (or cool) enough yet. Apple was simple in the right place at the right time.

Your memory of how things got to where we are now is fuzzy at best. :/

What the holy hell are you doing that you're having trouble with e-mail, of all things?

Support for IMAP/POP3 have been in the Android core for as long as I've been a user. And Exchange support is seemingly native to everyone running Gingerbread or newer. And in my experience, they've Just Worked as well -- even with several migrations from vanilla to/from custom roms and phones. And, for what it's worth, I'm sure iOS e-mail support is no worse.

I suppose you could use my father's experience with his Xperia as evidence of Android e-mail issues; but 100% of those issues are entirely due to him fat-fingering his password and then swearing at his phone a few times.

In all seriousness... There are issues which I will gladly agree that a given phone/OS is better than another on. But there are far more where I look at the user as the problem. This is one such issue.

... Sigh. You can't be serious.

You know what's inherently costly about the area? The fact it's costing them $70/mo for technology that's over ten years old. The local cable companies (Charter, Comcast and Cable One) can't decide who "owns" the area (yeah -- they won't encroach on each other) so they won't move in and serve the area. That leaves CenturyLink unchallenged, so they have no incentive to upgrade their terrible service or even offer their existing service at a reasonable price. That's the exact definition of price gouging according to Google and dictionary.com.

To put it into perspective, about 10 to 15 miles west of their house, Charter offers 30mbit service for $40/mo and CenturyLink offers 10 and 15mbit services for around the same price.

So you think it's perfectly reasonable to be charged $70/mo for what CenturyLink is calling 1.5mbit DSL (speed tests show closer to 756k)? I'm sure my parents would love something cheaper, but the only other options are dial-up for $20-30/mo, or satellite w/dial-up uplink for roughly the same price as they pay for almost-broadband.

If that's not price gouging...

(Oh, another fun fact regarding their situation: CenturyLink currently has no plans to upgrade the area, as per their local coordinator in charge of network rollouts.)

The bit about the extra data lines is true, but other manufactures (Samsung, for instance), use the microUSB form factor to create a port that not only contain the extra lines for audio/video out, but are also "backwards compatible" with standard microUSB cables/chargers.

Spacebar?

Generally speaking, it was a joke about/a cheap shot at people who buy Apple products, based on some anecdotal evidence.

The situation that stands out the most to me happened a few months back when I was having a discussion about mobile tech with one of my friend's siblings (who is in the 16-19 year old range). He was rocking a iPhone and studio-style Beats Audio headphone combo. When I explained to him that for the features he cared about, he could have gotten a set of actual professional studio headphones and an Android-based phone for significantly less money and superior hardware/feature sets, he just scoffed at me and said something along the lines of "these are cooler."
His purchasing decision wasn't made based on which product was best suited for doing a given task, but which has the greatest external "coolness" factor.

I understand that not everyone who buys Apple products does so for social acceptance. However, in my experience, that's generally not the case. Also, generalizations and exaggerations tend to make mediocre jokes a tad funnier. :P

I don't believe there's an Android app for "perceived social acceptance." :(

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113243/ :D

Indeed. I studied in Japan for a year and the most obvious thing to me was the complete lack of insulation everywhere (single pane windows, paper thin walls, etc.), climate control devices for each room and, as you were eluding to, the ever-popular three-wall store with full climate control, effectively cooling/heating the outdoors.

I'm sure there are some cultural differences I never picked up on or something, but as far as energy saving went, this area in itself seemed like a no-brainer to me.

I think it's one of those emotional/human thing. We'd much rather help people who are like us (size of a company/owners/neighbors/etc.) than the giant corporation who will likely crush us and toss us aside once we've served our purpose. That's been my experience, at least.

That said, with the mindset I have, I find it incredibly dishonest and dishonorable for a company like Apple to use such tactics to get a better deal. Not sure what actions I'd take if I were of the responsible parties in this situation, but I know I wouldn't be very happy.

What a twist!

Thank you. I've been reading the above posts becoming increasingly disappointed that it was seeming like I was the only person who wasn't thinking this was going to work like a Starcraft ghost painting a target with a friggen red laser pointer.

If you're going to have a soldier run up with a laser gun, why not just give them a bloody rifle and end it there? No. This targeting system will be on automated drones in the air and on the ground which have systems capable of automagically tracking a moving target with some degree of accuracy.

Not to mention, this is still in development. What happens when they get the range up to two miles? Five? Ten?

Yikes.

Oh good, someone else who understands why getters/setters are redundancies that generally lead to horribly bad things. I've been told for years that I'm insane and I just don't get it (or that I'm stuck in the past, etc).

If only I had mod points...