Re: [NTLK] iBattery

~~~ On 2007/07/09 19:09, Martin Joseph at NT@stillnewt.org wrote ~~~

>
> On Jul 9, 2007, at 10:24 AM, mkow1234@aol.com wrote:
>
>> Surprise, surprise! Remember the battery replacement issue with the
>> first generation iPods?
>> Well, the Apple product battery replacement fun is back once again:
>>
>> http://redtape.msnbc.com/2007/07/why-was-iphones.html
>
> This is a big bunch of fud just as it was with the ipod. Any half
> competent tech can remove and replace these batteries and high
> qaulity batteries are available for much less then from Apple.
>
> I have replaced many of the ipod batteries and it's no big deal
> despite all the law suits and such.
>>
>>
>>
>> * Note: Just countering all of the viral marketing (intentional or
>> unintentional) that we have been inundated with on our beloved
>> Newtontalk list. Don't like it? Then, post something of relevance
>> to the Newton.? :O)
>
> This is usually called trolling and is unlikely to get any newton
> related responses. Also it's good to mark thread like this as OT.
>
> Marty
>

At the risk of seeing this turn into a battery-throwing contest, I have to
say I don't understand how Matt can be accused of trolling the *Newton* list
(conveniently called "NewtonTalk" for those of us who forget where we are)
when he's expressing his preference for posts about *Newtons* and his strong
wish that he didn't have to wade past so many iPhone fan-posts to get to the
Newton ones. It could be said just as easily that we're suddenly being
inundated by off-topic posts about the iPhone. Should we now try to
achieve parity with the word "troll" by complaining about "iPhone spam"?

On the same point, IMO it's just a bit rich to tell him he should have
marked his post "[OT]"; why not also tell all the people writing about
their iPhones that they should mark their posts "[OT]"? As for telling Matt
he's "negative" for "vehemently complaining" well, I suppose it's an
interpretation, but not the most obvious one. Surely, using this kind of
language in the family is pointlessly inflammatory.

Matt's frustration over being in the Newton list only to find his bandwidth
full of stuff about iPhone ownership may be expressed a little intensely,
but he's not necessarily alone in what he's feeling. Just because we didn't
all write about it, doesn't mean some of us don't wish the balance could
return to talking about the Newton. And we can't exactly go away to the
Newton list instead; we're already here.

Arguably, Matt may be blowing the iPhone's battery-changing fiasco out of
proportion a little bit, but he has a good point. I'll set aside the
obvious comparison with the Newton's ease of battery change (too easy),
let's talk other cell phones. Right now for my sins I'm carrying 2: a
Sony-Ericsson K800i and a Sony-Ericsson K810i. Get one of your "half
competent techs" and stopwatch him as he changes the battery in an iPhone.
I will bet you a Newton battery that in the time it takes him to access the
iPhone's battery, I can turn off *both* of my phones, swap their batteries
AND their SIM cards, close them both, turn them both on again, and enter
their SIM passwords AND their handset passwords. No tools, no particular
need to be a half-competent tech, just my 2 hands, the ability to tie my own
shoes and a well-designed access. In something as snazzy as the iPhone,
it's not at all unreasonable to expect Apple to have given customers
something comparable. Instead, they came up with ...?

Obviously, there are certain things about the iPhone that everyone (?) can
appreciate. After all, King Steve has put a lot of resources into making it
happen, and it would be absurd if the result weren't a typically cool Apple
design. BUT -- for all that the iPhone does, there are shortcomings that I
for one find surprising, given that there ought to be a corporate memory in
Apple that they once designed the Newton. If Big Jobs had wanted to, it
would have been no sweat to bring the Newton up-to-date and blown away
everyone. Many of the plans were already there when His Jobsness axed the
Newton, and hardware technology for some things has moved a long way since
1997. Considering what the Newton community has done from the outside to
keep the Newton current, just imagine what could have been done if Apple
itself had aimed at greater functional continuity between the Newton and the
iPhone. Or if they'd just put the same resources into updating the Newton.

I reckon a lot of us, whether old time Newt-users or new arrivals like
myself, wish that Apple could have seen the value of the Newt's rôle as
"handheld computing complete with HWR, with added connectivity and synching
plus built-in mobile phone functionality". Instead they appear to have
opted for a "mobile phone with some PDA functionality" -- a kind of slicker
Blackberry. For myself, that's not a winner. I even can see why some folks
suspect that Jobs just can't let go of the past, and has chosen instead to
impose within Apple a total renunciation of the Sculley and all of his
works. But that's another story.

I'm as curious as the next guy about what the iPhone could become one day,
when somebody finally dreams possibilities and pushes it past the gimmicky,
eye-candy first-generation that it looks like to me. But when it comes to
posting on the list, I know there's a difference between "iPhone in the
context of the Newton" posts and "iPhone" posts.

I'm with you, Guy, that we should all just get along. But if there is a
hierarchy of posts in a list, shouldn't it be in favour of the posts that
most closely match the subject of the list? And if Matt or somebody writes
to remind us of that hierarchy, shouldn't we at least accept that he's got a
point?

Hmmmm, perhaps making it a battery-throwing contest would be interesting.
It could be done against a stopwatch, started when the contestants start to
remove the batteries out of their respective machines and ending when said
batteries hit the wall. ;)

Of course, the iPhone contestants could just throw their whole iPhone...

 
Shalom.
Christian

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

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            -- What Arthur C. Clarke meant to say

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