I use it more when I'm not driving.

For example replying to and sending messages while changing train, or setting reminders for things I think of while walking. I also use "hey Siri" to get the weather forecast and stuff hands free while getting ready in the morning, and for setting timers while cooking.

It's easy to see why it's not much use for a lot of people though.

And here's some more comparing Apple, TomTom, Google, and OpenStreetMap for (roughly) the same area: http://imgur.com/a/Q03kK

The fact that it requires this much explanation just for the workaround shows how badly the user interface experience has been screwed up. I'm surprised at the amount of defence Google's poor design is getting. If Apple or Microsoft had done the same thing they'd be dragged over coals.

That's hardly ideal. Now you're keeping around an extra Gmail account only to be able to log into Google+. How long would people bother with that? Not long, is my bet. They'll just forget about it eventually.

"What was my other account's password?... Ah bugger it, I don't really need Google+ anyway!"

Many people use Google Apps for their personal email address because they have a personal website but don't want to administer an email server. Also, this doesn't help at all with the changed her name when they got married problem his wife has.

I am thinking early next year Siri will be rolled out to iPhone 4 and iPad 2 owners

No doubt I'll be wrong in some spectacular way but my guess is that it'll be a paid option for the iPhone 4 and iPad 2. If that's correct it'll probably cost Apple's usual "token" amount of $10 or so.

with apologies to Oscar Wilde

Oh, it's quite all right.

I know what happens when I minimize a window.

You, sir, are not a typical user then. I know us geeks like to think we are a huge market segment that can dictate how things should be done but that is fantasy.

Alas! We nerds are but a small pimple on the market's arse.

I think with (b) the poster is talking about the totally idiotic way you move files between applications on iOS.

Say I have a text file created in one Application and I want to open it with another to do some formatting then open in again in the original application. On a sane system I'd have some sort of file browser I can use to locate the file. On iOS you have to send a copy to the other application, modify it, hope it knows about the original application so it can send it back, send back another copy of the file. It's a huge mess. It means you only ever bother to get documents onto iOS devices to view them and never bother trying to edit them there for fear you'll never be able to keep the dozens of eventual copies in order.

Even iOS applications that have native support for WebDAV manage to screw up and make duplicates of things all the time. The iWork apps on iPad are great examples of this. You wan't to work on something on a WebDAV share? Sure, here's a copy. You want to save those changes back to the WebDAV share? Ok, I'll just make another copy....

I hope that at some point Apple figures out that everybody hates their iOS file swapping system and at least gives us a walled of file area that we can access via WebDAV or over USB. Applications should then just pick files from that common area rather than maintaining their own duplicates of everything.

Access to the root filesystem of the device would be even better but I know that's unlikely to happen.

NASA astronomers will be flying onboard a specially equipped DC-8

Sure, right.

We all know that when they say "astronomers" they really mean Xenu.

We all know that when they say "DC-8"s the really mean space ships that look exactly like DC-8s.

Don't be fooled people! It's all happening again!

On a mac you can actually press the help key. It's over near the home key, IIRC.

I wonder if it could be made to actually insert the word help into text fields, it's certainly never used for any useful help information.

Notice when there are outbreaks of measles, etc. they never tell you what percentage of those infected were 'vaccinated', do they... I wonder why...

Rubbish.

They most certainly do. Around a third of children infected with measles will have been vaccinated but they have milder infections and are far less likely to die of them. Take a look at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14506371, http://www.jstor.org/pss/30106702, and http://www.springerlink.com/content/wv6714265t3l8150/ for some examples.

Your statement is even more absurd when you consider the research that must be done to determine the probability of successful vaccination. In the case of the MMR vaccine it's only around 80%, IIRC. Luckily most children are surrounded by vaccinated people who wont spread it to them.

I don't know if you're trolling or honestly believe a big medical conspiracy is out to kill you but either way, you're wrong.

I'm surprised it's not up on Wikipedia or something.

It is now.

Oh for goodness sake!

The last thing you want in an e-reader is for it to be light emitting. There's a reason we're putting so much effort into developing better eInk displays.

The only people who don't seem to understand this are the ones who don't read much or haven't read much on an eInk screen. It's a huge improvement over anything that works by shining light directly into your eyes.

I'm fine with both.

I'm not sure what you expected from Apple. It's a technical reference. The content is well organised and concise.

The MSDN content is maybe slightly more confusing. Why, for example, is the first link under "Getting Started with Visual Basic" a list of "what's new" and the "Visual Basic Guided Tour" is in "related sections"? Seems backwards.

I'm sure it would be possible to find examples showing it to be the other way around.

Both are real documentation for professional audiences. If either was written in the style each company uses for end user documentation they'd be unusable. Not that I think you were trying to suggest they should be.