Try the Leaf, which is $26k after the credit - that's about the same as a VW Golf Diesel, and is much cheaper to run if you don't drive long distances.

Admittedly I'm not sure how non-rich people are going to come up with the $7.5k to pay in advance for the full price, even if they get a tax refund a year or so later. In that sense, the rich or at least upper middle class are the only people likely to afford it.

That being said it's a lot cheaper than the Tesla Roadster, and definitely worth considering if you want to drive an interesting car without spending a lot.

D

In the market for cars, there is no equivalent to software that yanks the wheel out of your hands and changes course on its own free will. It should be very easy to use computers; all you need to do is follow the instructions on the screen. As long as you follow those instructions, you should not get into trouble.

Malware completely breaks that trust and has no connection with someone going into a car with no driver training, or driving like a madman.

Having an "expert button" might be a reasonable idea. But remember, for every Slashdot user, or person who basically believes in the Slashdot philosophy, there are at least 100 ordinary users.

It's interesting that Apple does not appear to be actively trying to prevent people from jailbreaking their iPads or iPod Touches. Apple has some obligations concerning the iPhone and its interoperability with telephone networks that make jailbreaking genuinely probematic to them.

I seem to remember iPad was jailbroken using a fairly straightforward and well known exploit; if Apple had wanted to prevent it, they could have.

Just some food for thought there ...

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The balanced perspective is between the worlds of freedom (being able to install any application I want) and Jobsian Tyranny (being able to install only what Steve approves).

Both philosophies serve their respective devices well, which is my point.

I am glad Windows has served you well.

D

Probably because the keyboard has a fixed location on the bottom of the phone.

The main reason for rotation on the iPhone was to make the onscreen keyboard less difficult to type with.

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So I was saying, "Gee, this is sad, iPad gets almost 1,000 comments about its closed nature and the Palm Pre can only muster 28 about the outage?"

It was worse than that. Looks like most of them are about lousy iPhone coverage!

So I should chime in. To keep this on topic, I can say that my Palm Pre's Sprint coverage didn't work at all where I live, and if I wasn't using it as a development device, I would have taken it back.

My iPhone works fine in the Pittsburgh area. It drops calls almost identically to Verizon phones in the same area. Sometimes it's actually a little better, other times it's a little worse. Pittsburgh is very hilly - its topography is similar to the Hollywood Hills in Los Angeles - so truly excellent cellphone service is probably not feasible. But Verizon and AT&T are both about equally mediocre, with Sprint way behind. (I haven't tried T-Mobile in a while so I will ignore them.)

I think the real problem with iPhone is that AT&T didn't realize how geographically concentrated iPhone use was going to be, and did not plan accordingly. Last year, the AT&T network failed at South by Southwest in Austin due to the huge concentration of iPhones suddenly descending on the place. This year, no problem at all, because AT&T beefed up their network and things worked fine.

Now I wonder why on earth they couldn't do that for the Bay Area, since by now they know what they need.

So if you are in a random place in the USA, instead of NYC, the Bay Area or other hotbeds of iPhone use, your AT&T service is probably fine, as mine is.

D

Apple's App Store has sold billions of dollars worth of apps, and has millions of happy customers. By any reasonable criteria it has achieved greatness.

As for iPad, yes, I think it's the best thing out there for the purpose it serves. It's a portable device to browse the web, and it lets me use over 5,000 programs designed exclusively for it, almost all of which are interesting, fun to use and available at very fair prices. Not to mention almost 200,000 iPhone apps.

Have you tried one?

What device would you consider better for that purpose?

D

Of course Apple is anticipating this with iPhone OS, which doesn't allow unsigned software to run at all. You really should be completely impervious to attacks as long as you stick to the closed world of iPhone/iPad, which makes life a lot easier for everyone save virus writers.

That's the real dilemma created by advocates of software freedom. A closed system has genuine advantages and that's what scares many of them. The fact is that a non-free system is actually better for most users.

I'm not saying I like that fact, or that it's a good thing, but unfortunately it is still a fact.

D

Of course he is a little stuck if you do in fact lose the installation disks, as many of us absent-minded folks do.

I think you can just use the normal Unix passwd command to change the password in single user mode.

Or simply buy a copy of Snow Leopard, since they are available everywhere for $29.95, boot the system and change the password as you outlined.

It would be comparable in difficulty, or maybe even harder to do the same thing on Windows or Linux, so I'm not sure where this particular example gets us.

D

That last paragraph is exactly why Apple devices are locked down. You can't mess up your iPhone or iPad unless you deliberately set out to do so.

It's a good deal for a lot of people. Admittedly, almost none of then are Slashdotters. In my case I have both an iMac and an iPad and love both of them for what they do.

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Should someone who is not an expert have to know and do all those things just to have a car?

Time has value. The more time you spend fixing things, the less time you have for being creative, or spending time with your girlfriend, or whatever.

You have the freedom to do those things, but sometimes the freedom from having to do them is more important.

D