Let the companies innovate to make money, sitting on patents is getting ridiculous. Especially when the patent is awarded for something like (move your finger from left to right across a touch screen in order to effect some action"
The right solution is to award patents only for real innovation (for some definition of innovation) AND to arm the patent office with capable people that can actually understand what they are reviewing (which comes with the added cost of paying these competent people). Neither of these are likely to happen, so how do we go about fixing the situation?
The dialer no longer allows special characters that are part or USSD codes. see patch:
https://android.googlesource.com/platform/packages/apps/Contacts/+/39948dc7e34dc2041b801058dada28fedb80c388%5E!/#F0
now, everyone can still rant about how long it will take for owners to receive an updated version of Android (if ever).
and before anyone starts the iOS vs Android bantering. No, iOS does not have this particular flaw:
"Specifically, if a URL contains the * or # characters, the Phone application does not attempt to dial the corresponding phone number."
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#featuredarticles/iPhoneURLScheme_Reference/Articles/PhoneLinks.html
"you have root, you can change it" is not an excuse for putting crap into a distribution.
http://themanufacturingrevolution.com/braun-vs-apple-is-copying-designs-theft-or-innovation
How can Apple's designs belonged to Apple when it is proven that they stole the designs from others?
I ordered my Pi from Element14 on Aug 14th and it shipped on Aug 28th. I don't know what you are doing wrong such that you haven't received yours yet.
Once my Pi arrived, I downloaded an SD card image, wrote it to a card using dd, added power to the Pi and everything worked straight away. The parts that took the most effort were retrieving my spare cell phone charger and finding an HDMI cable to connect it to my TV.
Where is all the hate coming from?
It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.