Re: [NTLK] formerly iBattery

~~~ On 2007/07/10 20:21, Martin Joseph at NT@stillnewt.org wrote ~~~

> Actually there is a long tradition on this list of including/
> encouraging comments and reviews about other handheld and PDA
> platforms. Perhaps we should exclude the iphone from this courtesy
> just because it's an Apple product? Or maybe because it's over-hyped?
>
> Regardless of why you are sick of iPhone, angry frustrated ranting
> about it is unlikely to help.
>
> Yes, I do agree the battery is harder to change in the iphone then
> pretty much any other cell phone I have seen. Still, based on my
> experience with the ipods and the hyperbolic nonsense about those
> batteries, this isn't a big deal (assuming the battery works a while).
>
> Actually with Open Einstein iPhone might be able to become a Newton
> some day! Wouldn't that be grand. Apple would have to open up the
> iphone development platform though ( I think this is quite likely),
> or a linux replacement OS would be needed (this will happen).
>
> When you complain about posts on a certain topic and then start a new
> thread on that same topic.... Trolling.
>
> Marty
>
> PS Christian I must add that your derogatory comments about iphone
> seem totally weak and largely unfounded, much in the same vane as
> Matt's "overpriced" comment. The iphone really is a groundbreaking
> new mobile platform, despite all hype.

Dear Marty,

Although I'm a newb, I was aware of the the tradition you mention, having
sampled Newton posts from some time back in an effort to catch up. I think
perhaps the problem for some of us comes because it was starting to look as
though we were on the brink of tipping over into something new: a
transformation of the Newton list into an iPhone list. That's what was
behind my comment about "... a difference between "iPhone in the context of
the Newton" posts and "iPhone" posts." I love to indulge my passion for
new gadgetry at all times and in all places, but I know that at some times
and in some places I need to observe boundaries. Sorry I wasn't clearer
about my perception of that distinction; I hope I've fixed that now. And to
answer your question, I'd hate us to stop talking about the iPhone
altogether, but when the iPhone takes over Newton list, it ignores that
distinction to the detriment of NewtonTalk, IMO.

I agree with you completely about the uselessness of "angry frustrated
ranting", hence my comments about pointlessly inflammatory language.
Ironically, it was with the aim of turning the temperature back down that I
endeavoured to restate Matt's points (apparently I at least succeeded at
that to some degree) with what I intended to be less ire. If you thought I
was ranting there, you'd hate to see it when I *really* rant!

In any case, I stick by seeing the need of somebody actually stating that a
particular off-topic was approaching saturation point at least for some of
us. The fact that Guy could respond that Matt was the only one who said he
didn't like it is indication that it needed to be said to correct such a
misapprehension. Rather than labelling that "trolling", I'd call it "asking
if we could please go back to talking about Newtons on NewtonTalk". The
fact that his saying it (and presumably that my agreeing??) could be called
"trolling" is indication that saying what needed to be said was being
rejected on grounds other than relevance to Newtons. I read that as putting
Matt and anyone who agrees with him in a situation akin to "heads we win,
tails you lose", or more precisely, "damned if you do, damned if you don't".
To me, calling a list-member's reminder within a thread "trolling" isn't
that much different from telling someone at a public meeting of the town
council that they aren't allowed to question the town council about the
topic of that meeting. (I'm sure I could say that better for the benefit of
those who don't attend many town coucil meetings, but it's getting late
here.)

I wish it was an easy, cut-and-dried thing, but it isn't. I'd hate to see
NewtonTalk become one of those hamstrung, anally retentive lists where the
least deviation from the list's exact raison d'etre is cause for flaming
followed by warning followed by banning (been there, seen that done, burnt
the T-shirt). OTOH, looking back, I still think Matt had just reason for
asking us to resume some kind of balance.

What little I know of OpenEinstein has me drooling. If I had time to learn
it properly, I'd probably already be working on getting it up and running on
some modern piece of kit.

> PS Christian I must add that your derogatory comments about iphone
> seem totally weak and largely unfounded, much in the same vane as
> Matt's "overpriced" comment. The iphone really is a groundbreaking
> new mobile platform, despite all hype.

Finally (whew! Eh?), I never tried to be derogatory of the iPhone for a
moment -- I was aiming to be no more than mildly critical of the failure of
Apple to apply knowledge they've had for a very long time in order to make
the iPhone a significantly better thing to own than this first iteration
appears to be. Oh yeah, and to take a gentle poke at the apparent glossing
over its shortcomings.

I'm reminded by iPhone of a program for OS 9 called SoundJam. It was an
amazing precursor to iTunes that in many ways still surpasses it, but when
Apple bought the rights to SoundJam and took its development team from
Cassady & Greene, they didn't keep all SoundJam's great features and make
them available to OS X users; iTunes is in certain ways a crippled rendering
of SoundJam, even now in version 7.3. They sacrificed quite a lot of
everyday functionality to produce software that's meant to "draw in" the
user to another product -- the iPod -- and to a service -- iTunes store.
Sad. And to me this iteration of the iPhone is doing something a little
like that.

I guess at the heart of my own feelings about the iPhone is disappointment.
Seeing what Apple did with the Newton (and what some clever folks here in
the Newton users community have been able to do with it in the last 10
years, without the help of Apple), and seeing now what Apple has done with
the iPhone, I think I have a pretty good idea how much more the iPhone could
be than it is. I imagine this is what Albert Einstein's teachers might have
felt in those early days when he turned in only indifferent school work, if
they had any inkling that he was really very bright. "Could do better"
wouldn't have said enough.

BTW, if you consider what I wrote about the iPhone derogatory, then we
really aren't communicating yet! Sorry for not expressing myself well
enough.

And I'm STILL with Guy: we all should be able to just get along. It's the
human equivalent to "connectivity", right? :) But it'll be hard for us to
do that if one side posts -- let's call it "on the edge of topic" -- and
then cries foul when someone else complains that the edge of topic isn't as
good as the topic.

And now I really want to bow out of this discussion. I initially got
involved only because, instead of seeing people respond rationally to Matt's
request, and say something like, "we think we were on-topic because of a and
b and c. Why do you think it's off-topic, and why don't we all refine our
definitions of on-topic and off-topic to keep posts more satisfying for
everyone?", it appeared that people were jumping on Matt, trying to isolate
him as if he spoke only for himself, because he objected to the direction
things had taken. It didn't seem fair.

I guess it's all in the shifts in perspective: one man's edge-of-topic is
another man's list-hijacking. And if we could realize that, we could start
by assuming that we're all here for the same thing, and we all mean well,
and all contrary appearances are just a a matter of how we're seeing things.
It would make it easier.

As I say, I'll be dropping this now; I've said too much already. Long live
the Newton!
 
Shalom.
Christian

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

³Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from a NewtonPad.²
            -- What Arthur C. Clarke meant to say

http://youtube.com/watch?v=1ZzpdPJ7Zr4
(With thanks to Chod Lang)
http://tinyurl.com/29y2dl

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