Anyone else here in the post-PC era?

The new notifications center? Location-based reminders? Siri, if you're on an iPad 2 or iPhone 4S?No joy?

A couple that were current about when the iPhone 4 came out. I found them slow and unresponsive, due to the JVM overhead. The only advantage seems to be that, on Android platforms, Google doesn't decide how many fart apps you can have access to on the phone. Whoopty-doo. Currently, one - the iPhone 4S. The iPad is also a dual-core A5. And without the need to operate a JVM on top of the kernel, they're faster than equivalent Android models.

Jar, I literally don't understand how you approach technology. If you dont get email on your iPad, and you don't put music on it, and you don't game on it, what on earth do you do with it? Can you elaborate on how a music player can be for people who can't think or discriminate? I've used iTunes since it came out; it's ugly but I don't recall ever being insulted by it.Also - you mentioned last night that it was the first time you had ever plugged your iPad into a computer. So if you're not synccing to a computer ever, what did you expect wifi sync to sync to?

Well, I won't disagree that it's bloated, but it kind of has to be - it's not just a music player, it's a playlist manager, it's a full media viewer for PDF and video files, it's a web-based media store, it's an activation portal for cell phones, it's a device manager, it has sharing, it has social media... it's doing a lot, in other words, besides playing your collection of Merle Haggard albums.

Presumably this is why you don't need to sync your iPad with your computer, then.

I have no answers to your questions, but I think my upgrade went much smoother because I didn't try to use iCloud and I upgraded at the computer my iPhone considers "home." Unless you were already syncing to that computer I don't think iTunes is going to know what to sync back onto the device. I know the iPad isn't as computer-tethered as the other devices. I don't have one so I can't offer my experiences there. (As for my own issues, it turned out to be my own fault - I had DNS redirects in my hosts.conf file from the last time I jailbroke.)

This came up earlier in the thread, and today I saw an interesting chart of iPhone vs. Android handsets and their relative degree of update support: http://theunderstatement.com/...ing-a-sad-history-of-support

No, support updates are on this chart, too. Well, ok, but from the ground up it was always the design of the Android paradigm to market it on handsets which Google didn't manufacture. Manufacturers and carriers have the power to simply refuse to update their handsets with the newer versions of Android specifically because Google thought it advantageous to give them that power.So the fault is with Android - Android was always designed to allow manufacturers to essentially abandon handsets they've already sold. Well, right. And there would only be one Android phone made by Google if that's how Google had decided to sell Android phones.But it isn't. Google decided to allow handset manufacturers to put Android on phones with no requirement that they support new versions of Android. You can hardly say that the fact that they were wrong to do so (and Apple was right to be the only manufacturer of iOS devices) proves that it's an "unfair" comparison. It's like saying that you can't compare the gold and silver medalists of a 100-yard dash because one is faster than the other. No shit, that's the point of the comparison.

The reason that it's in the hands of manufacturers is because the design of Android explicitly puts it in the hands of manufacturers. As such, Android can be held "accountable". No, absolutely wrong. Since iOS 1, Apple has added:iTunes purchasing on the phone
The App Store and the ability to run third-party apps
Support for stereo bluetooth headphones
Copy and paste
MMS
GPS integration in Maps
Push notifications
"Genius" playlists
Video recording
HTML5
Tethering
Support for Nike+
Multitasking
Facetime
iBooks
App folders
AirPlay streaming
Notifications center
Wifi sync
SiriEdited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

"Every iPhone and Android model released before July 2010"

There was an article along with the chart, which actually speaks to this point, maybe you'd like to read it?

The link is under the table.I don't say "go read it" as a gotcha, it was actually a really interesting article.

Hooah, I don't have any problems with whatever phone you want to use. And I think app investment counts for a lot. I'll stay on the iPhone because I have dozens of apps for that platform. You probably have a bunch for yours.It's honestly fine with me. Stick with what you like! And thanks for adding your perspective.

Just to elaborate on PaulK, here; the notion of this table is "how long am I stuck with a phone that isn't getting updates?" Remember that these phones are being sold on contract, so replacement is a very expensive proposition at least until the two or three years of your contract is up.So iPod Touch's aren't going to be on the table because they're not sold on contract (and are not cell phones.) And the table is only going as far as three years after release because that's probably the longest-case operating scenario - the phone sits on a shelf for a year, then you buy it on a two-year contract.The table isn't about support over long-term ownership, it's about support over the most plausible shortest-term ownership - the two years before your contract expires and you can get a new phone. That's why the prices on the table are the subsidized contract prices.

Should I be bothered that a device doesn't do that, for some reason? How much Excel editing can you really do in a window the size of a playing card?